Okay we’re going to open it up to questions and I want to remind those of you who are on the phone and joining us by Webcast today that you can e-mail in your questions.  We’ve got a number of them here that I’m going to start with on the table but keep those e-mails coming.  They’re coming straight to my e-mail here on my laptop so we’ll be able to respond immediately.  Let’s start with a very frequently asked question that has been coming in throughout the week and that is how will the new FEMA Corps program affect the number of DAEs that are deployed?

Well I think as far as affecting the number of DAEs that are deployed, right now they’re going to be there to supplement and to  assist the DAEs or the reservists that are deployed, not to actually going affect that number.  Of course it depends on the disaster how many people are going to be needed at the disaster and where we’re going to be able to and how many people we’re going to deploy at that.

I would just add that -- and I think we know this from if you look back at the last five years of history of disasters, we seem to do pretty good when there’s the smaller events.  When we start to hit bigger events like Irene, Gustov or even Katrina, is where we had significant problems with the number of people to get out to disasters.  So what this does is this works together as part of the team to help during disasters and we actually think that we probably need more reservists than we currently have right now that are available right now.  So we’re looking at mechanisms to improve the reservist and also leverage the FEMA Corps program for disasters to meet all the requirements whether it’s smaller disasters or the bigger disasters and make sure that we have the capacity to do that with this new organization.

All right, next question, what will the AmeriCorps volunteers -- and they’re not volunteers, they’re members -- be doing when they’re not deployed?  Will they be located in designated communities doing other work?  Going back to AmeriCorps work?  What do they do during these down periods?

Sure, the FEMA Corps members are dedicated for the 10 months of service to activities related to disasters.  Therefore we understand that they’ll be looking at the entire disaster continuum so they’ll be engaged in response and recovery.  We’ve looked at the profile of our members that are even currently engaged with FEMA activities and they have been engaged in the southern part of the country for years, for five years working on long-term recovery.  So as we have spoken to the FEMA staff since our beginning it’s clear to us that there is a significant amount of work that’s out there to be done and all of it tied back to originally declared disasters.

And that was Kate Rafferty from NCCC from National Community Service.  The only thing we can do is we also can provide opportunities for further training in between deployments.  Keep in mind that they’re at five campuses so when they’re not at disasters they would go back to that campus and there’s not only training that we could provide them from FEMA but there’s life skills training that NCCC provides them as part of their program already.  So there are a number of opportunities to leverage their capabilities.

We have a new question that just came in.  It says will the hurricane teams assigned for each of the gulf coast states and AmeriCorps members meet for training before hurricane season begins on June 1st?

Yeah, I wasn’t aware that AmeriCorps teamed up with our hurricane liaison teams but so I think it’s a good point to distinguish between over the last couple of years, probably four or five years, we’ve already had a relationship with AmeriCorps and specifically NCCC where we actually mission assign them to assist us and that will continue to happen.  What we’re talking about here is this specific  group of 1,600 people we’re really focused on supporting FEMA’s organization and FEMA’s roles and responsibilities with regard to disaster response and recovery in the field.  So we’re not going to change what we’ve historically done and that historical relationship with NCCC and in addition this new structure will be able to leverage to help us in other areas of the organization, specifically in IA, public assistance, logistics and that community relations.

And specifically for this year, you know, even if we wanted to, they won’t be on board until August and then out ‘til September of this year so maybe -- any questions from anybody on the VTC?  

Good afternoon, this is the Mississippi Recovery Office.  Our questions today are from CORE employees here.  How will the FEMA Corps program affect the local hire opportunities? 

It really shouldn’t affect the local hire opportunities.  The FEMA Corps members will travel in teams of approximately 10.  They have 10 that are in a team as they go out to various locations but they’ll be there for long-terms and again, those very specific right now, eight job categories that Bob mentioned that they’ll be in.  So there still will be opportunity for the local hires as well and it looks like you have another question.

I do, thank you.  Why will FEMA Corps employees receive status for 10 months of work when long-term CORE employees do not?

This is Brad Kaiserman.  So that’s a great question because it gives us an opportunity to address some of the conceptions about what FEMA Corps is so first of all let me begin with FEMA Corps folks are not employees of the Federal Emergency Management Agency or even the federal government.  They are young people who are performing national service.  The relationship they have with the government is that of being members of NCCC.  So they’re not employees and they at this point have no status at all.  So they are not Stafford Act employees.  They don’t have any particular status as federal employees because they’re not federal employees.  And so when you start looking at comparing them between the traditional federal workforce and FEMA including our reservists, our CORES, our permanent full-time employees, it’s not necessarily an apt comparison because they have none of the characteristics of a federal employee and they in no way, especially with respect to the recovery offices, they don’t supplant at all.  They would supplement if anything but they don’t supplant.  They’re on limited terms and they are not employees.  The other point I would add is unlike our Stafford Act employees and CORES, the term of a member of NCCC is limited to 10 months with the ability to renew for a second term of 10 months.  So it’s really a total of two years only and after that there’s  no further movement going.  They have to move on out of the program and into other things somewhat different than the way we run our CORE program.  I hope that answers the question.

I’m going to clarify my question.  I think that the question that was being asked was whether members of FEMA Corps, once they leave the FEMA Corps program and apply for federal jobs in the future will receive status.

Under current federal law there’s no capability for FEMA Corps or NCCC members to receive non-competitive status in the federal workforce.  Now whether that remains the same for the foreseeable future, I don’t know.  What I can say is that the agency is currently exploring ways that we can bring all members of our disaster workforce within the interest and provide opportunities for them to transition into the permanent workforce.  But as you know that is strictly really a matter of federal personnel laws.  It’s not something we have a great deal of discretion to affect.  But right now people who are at NCCC or FEMA Corps will not be receiving any non-competitive status at the completion of their term.