Disaster Response Cost Recovery Workbook

Introduction

Many fire and emergency medical services organizations forgo funding opportunities related to 

federally declared disasters because they believe that the reporting requirements are difficult and 

that record keeping is time consuming. To help, the United States Fire Administration and the 

National Fire Academy have developed simple Excel workbooks and examples to assist with 

tracking costs related to disaster response and recovery and to assist with inventory control and 

supply reordering. The worksheets are designed to capture common reimbursable costs as they 

are being expended. They can be customized if needed and are not designed to take the place of 

cost recovery documentation processes for those departments that are well-versed in cost 

recovery. The worksheets can be copied or replicated for incidents that extend over long periods 

or that require more than one sheet per operational period. The headers are designed to capture 

the name of the incident and the date of tracking, while the footers capture who is completing the 

worksheets, how many worksheets have been developed during the operational period, and the 

name of the person who reviews and approves the information on the worksheet.

The Worksheets

Within the workbook, there are four working worksheets (personnel, capital, expended supplies, 

other costs and expenses), one worksheet that aggregates (combines) the costs of response, and 

one worksheet that tracks personnel assigned to incidents and notes if the incident involved 

giving mutual aid. 

The Personnel worksheet captures the identifier of the individual (name, employee 

identification number, their rate of pay, their benefit rate at straight time and at overtime). The 

sheet defaults to an overtime rate of 150% of the straight time rate. If there is a different 

overtime rate, you will need to change the multiplier. 

When calculating the number of overtime hours being applied to the disaster, make sure that you 

capture what is required for overtime by your organizational policies. For example, if your 

department responds to a tornado on Sunday night (with the pay week running from 7 a.m. 

Sunday to 6:59 a.m. the following Sunday) then brings members in to work the incident, and the 

overtime policy states that overtime will begin after 48 hours are worked in a week, the rate of 

pay for the members working the incident is at straight time since they will not cross the 48 

hours worked mark until later in the week. 

Volunteer personnel, including volunteer responders, members of your Community Emergency 

Response Team, amateur radio operators and others, have value and should be captured on the 

worksheet. Generally, a rate between $20 and $30 per hour captures their value, but there are 

regional value differences throughout the country.

• Only capture time that is associated with the disaster.

• Make sure that the time is correctly coded (straight time or overtime).

• Volunteers have value; make sure to accurately capture their value to the response.

• Make sure that your personnel policies support straight time and overtime assignments.
The Equipment Costs worksheet captures the cost of equipment used. The “Rate” heading links 

to the 2019 Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Schedule of Equipment Rates 

(https://www.fema.gov/media-library-data/1566918062583-

b079c79b86366aa3819da87b011dbe73/FEMA_Schedule_of_Equipment_Rates_2019_508clean_

081319.pdf). This will provide predetermined rates for most equipment that may be used in a 

disaster.

The Materials Costs worksheet captures purchases made to support the incident.

• Use the Equipment Costs worksheet to capture items that are listed on the FEMA 

Schedule of Equipment Rates.

• Use the Materials Cost worksheet to capture purchases related to the incident.

• Use the Materials Cost worksheet to capture repairs or replacement costs of equipment 

damaged during incident response.

The Incident Tracking worksheet captures, using a drop-down box, personnel who are assigned 

to an incident, the incident location, type of incident and if the incident involved providing 

mutual aid.

The Combined Costs worksheet captures the total of the other worksheets and summarizes 

them. This puts the overall daily costs in a single location, making for quicker and easier 

reporting to elected officials and emergency operations personnel who are determining overall 

incident costs.

• The Combined Costs worksheet captures the totals from each of the other worksheets and 

provides an overall daily cost summary.

To learn more about how to prepare for cost recovery from disasters, visit

https://apps.usfa.fema.gov/nfacourses/catalog/details/602 and 

https://training.fema.gov/is/searchis.aspx?search=public%20assistance.