Utah Department of Public Safety

But they didn’t have funding.

Active duty military need to have funding dedicated to a specific mission, and the federal government was in the midst of a two-week shutdown.

Back then, there was no codified mechanism to provide funding for a State agency or agent of the state to respond to an incident in another state.

Fortunately, the State of Colorado had the ability to front the money for the Utah National Guard to deploy.

Fast forward to 2016: In March, Gov. Gary Herbert signed HB 14, sponsored by Rep. Curt Oda, R-Clearfield, into law. The bill takes effect May 10.

The new law allows the Division of Emergency Management to loan money from the Disaster Recovery Restricted Account, which has a current balance of around $19 million, to an agency or agent of the state to respond outside of Utah with the understanding that when a reimbursement is issued, funds will be deposited back into the Disaster Recovery Restricted Account.

HB 14 will allow Utah’s great responders to play a role in disaster recovery and response in other states, when requested through the Emergency Management Assistance Compact, a system of state-to-state mutual aid.

We appreciate Rep. Oda for carrying the bill, for the Legislature’s vote to pass it and for Gov. Herbert’s support. This is a great way to put disaster recovery dollars to work.

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