Arapahoe County staff warn FEMA review proposals could shift more disaster costs and work to Colorado

Arapahoe County emergency managers told commissioners this week that recommendations from a federal review of FEMA could shift more disaster-response and recovery responsibility to states, tribes and local governments, a change staff said could leave Colorado and counties handling more costs and administrative work after disasters.

At the county's June 8 study session, emergency-management staff told commissioners the proposal would raise the threshold for qualifying for FEMA public-assistance help from about $3 million to more than $5 million statewide and would push more duties such as procurement oversight, environmental and historic-preservation review, audits, sheltering and mitigation readiness onto states and counties.

Those concerns stem from the FEMA Review Council's final report, released May 7. The report says disasters should be "locally executed, state or tribally managed, and federally supported" and recommends higher disaster-declaration thresholds, a reworked public-assistance system and narrower individual-assistance programs. But the report is a set of recommendations to the president, not an implemented policy change.

The council report says FEMA should "update federal disaster declaration thresholds" and establish annual minimum state spending before some states can request a federal declaration. It also proposes a new public-assistance model that would send money to states directly, with states managing more of the eligibility, oversight and distribution work now tied to FEMA's grant process.

For Colorado, current FEMA indicators remain lower than the level Arapahoe staff said could be used under the proposed approach. FEMA's fiscal year 2026 public-assistance indicators list a statewide indicator of $1.94 per person and a countywide indicator of $4.86 per person. Staff told commissioners the proposed reset would effectively move Colorado's statewide public-assistance threshold from roughly $3 million to above $5 million before federal help would kick in.

Commissioners pressed staff on whether Colorado could absorb the extra workload. Staff said in the study session that the state's emergency-management division is already strained, with many positions federally funded and vacancies affecting capacity. If federal rules eventually require more state-run procurement review, auditing, shelter coordination and mitigation administration, counties such as Arapahoe could face slower reimbursements, heavier compliance work or pressure to cover more response and recovery costs locally before outside aid arrives.

Some FEMA thresholds do continue to change under current law, but those are separate from the council's broader restructuring proposals. In April, a Federal Register notice set the 2026 statewide indicator for recommending a higher federal cost share at $189 per capita of state or tribal population. That routine annual adjustment is already in effect; the larger governance changes discussed in Arapahoe are not.

What remains unclear is how quickly any of the review council's recommendations could take effect and how much would require Congress rather than administrative action. A Congressional Research Service summary says some recommendations could be advanced by executive action, including changes to FEMA's criteria for evaluating disaster declarations, while many proposed overhauls to disaster-grant programs would more likely require legislation.

For Arapahoe County, the immediate issue is whether changes to federal disaster policy could leave county government depending more heavily on state capacity and, if that capacity falls short, on local money and staffing to bridge the gap during future fires, floods or other major emergencies.