Who Hijacked Our Country

Friday, September 09, 2005

FEMA Now Hiring. No Experience Necessary!!

Job seekers: are you desperate for a job but you don’t have any experience? Maybe you’ve been fired from every job you’ve ever had and you’re afraid nobody will hire you.

You can get a job with FEMA. On-the-job training, no educational or experience requirements. No references needed. They can’t turn you down!

Five of FEMA's top officials came to the agency with no prior experience in handling disasters. FEMA’s top three leaders got their jobs as a reward for working on Bush’s 2000 presidential campaign. Many of the agency’s most experienced managers have left FEMA since 2001.

This combination — inexperienced personnel who got their jobs as a political reward, and the departure of the most experienced leaders — has created a “brain drain” at the agency. The crisis was made even worse in 2003 when FEMA lost its cabinet-level status and was merged with the Department of Homeland Security.

A professor at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy said “FEMA has gone downhill within the department, drained of resources and leadership. The crippling of FEMA was one important reason why it failed.”

A non-profit group that promotes careers in the federal government has ranked FEMA at the bottom of the 28 federal agencies it studied.

In 2004, the American Federation of Government Employees took a survey of the best government agencies to work for. 84 FEMA employees responded; only ten of them described their bosses as good or excellent. 67 of them said the agency has gone downhill since merging with Homeland Security.