In the Matter of CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

September 15, 2026

CBCA 8853-FEMA

In the Matter of CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

Alexander J. Holtzman and Michael Levin-Gesundheit, Office of the City Attorney,

San Francisco, CA; Chris Bomhoff of Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz,

PC, Fort Lauderdale, FL; and Wendy Huff Ellard of Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell

& Berkowitz, PC, Jackson, MS, counsel for Applicant.

Carl DeNigris, Assistant Chief Counsel, Jasmine Jones, Senior Counsel, and Trevor

Morris-Seekins, Counsel, California Office of Emergency Services, Mather, CA, counsel for

Grantee; and Robert Larsen, Public Assistance Officer, Eli Owen, Assistant Director, Fan

Jia, Program Manager, and Tama Harville and Destiny Saechou, Associate Governmental

Program Analysts, appearing for Grantee.

Alecia Frye and Emanuel Rier Soto, Office of Chief Counsel, Federal Emergency

Management Agency, Department of Homeland Security, Washington, DC, counsel for

Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Before the Arbitration Panel consisting of Board Judges LESTER, SHERIDAN, and

NEWSOM.

LESTER, Board Judge, writing for the Panel.

Applicant, the City and County of San Francisco, California (the City), seeks public

assistance (PA) funding pursuant to the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency

Assistance Act (Stafford Act), 42 U.S.C. §§ 5121-5207 (2024), for costs incurred to support

emergency protective measures (EPMs) that it put in place during the first four months of the

COVID-19 pandemic. Most of the costs for which the City seeks PA funding relate to the

City’s transition of the Moscone Center South into a temporary emergency operations center

(EOC), but some claimed costs relate to work performed to benefit temporary field offices

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and medical clinics that the City established to combat the spread of the COVID-19 virus,

rather than the EOC. The specific costs for which the City seeks PA funding here are as

follows:

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

$1,260,787.28 in contract labor costs that the City incurred to convert

the Moscone Center South from a convention center into an EOC;

$19,603.06 in utility costs that the City paid during the first four months

of the operation of the Moscone Center EOC;

$603,045.23 in costs associated with renting and installing audio/visual

(A/V) equipment for use at the Moscone Center EOC;

$55,740.39 in costs of purchasing disinfecting supplies for the EOC;

$595,991.70 in costs (both for increased bandwidth and labor) related

to facility alterations through which telecom, internet, and electrical

services were supplied to the EOC;

$982,956.47 in costs for meals that the City provided to employees

working at the EOC between March and June 2020;

$117,549.18 in straight-time labor-hour costs of temporary City

employees who were reassigned from their original work projects so

that they could assist in technology work at the Moscone Center EOC;

$918,430.30 in costs for EPMs at both the Moscone Center EOC and

various temporary field offices and medical clinics that the City

established; and

$51,025 in costs incurred to rent portable toilets and handwashing

stations at a particular field care clinic at which the City provided the

public with COVID-19 testing.

After considering the record that the parties developed in this arbitration, we find that

the City has provided sufficient support to obtain PA funding for some of the costs for which

it seeks reimbursement, but we deny some of the City’s requests.

Background

I.

FEMA’s COVID-Related Policies

On March 22, 2020, the President declared the COVID-19 pandemic a major disaster

in the state of California (FEMA-4482-DR-CA), with an incident period beginning on

January 20, 2020, and eventually running through May 11, 2023.

See

https://www.fema.gov/disaster/4482 (last visited Sept. 15, 2026). The President’s disaster

declaration authorized PA funding for Category B EPMs. Id.

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On March 19, 2020, FEMA released its “Fact Sheet, Coronavirus (COVID-19)

Pandemic: Eligible Emergency Protective Measures” (March 2020 Fact Sheet), in which it

“urge[d] officials to, without delay, take appropriate actions that are necessary to protect

public health and safety pursuant to public health guidelines and conditions and capabilities

in their jurisdictions.” FEMA Exhibit 2 at 1. In this March 2020 Fact Sheet, FEMA stated

that “eligible emergency protective measures taken to respond to the COVID-19 emergency

at the direction or guidance of public health officials may be reimbursed under Category B

of FEMA’s [PA] Program.” Id. Such EPMs included, but were not limited to, the following

categories, if not funded by another federal agency: “[m]anagement, control, and reduction

of immediate threats to public health and safety,” including EOC costs; the “[p]urchase and

distribution of food, water, ice, medicine, and other consumable supplies, to include personal

protective equipment”; the “[m]ovement of supplies and persons”; and “[c]ommunications

of general health and safety information to the public.” Id. at 1-2. FEMA also stated that its

Public Assistance Program and Policy Guide (PAPPG) (Apr. 2018) provided “[f]urther

information about eligible emergency protective measures.” Id. at 2.

FEMA Policy FP 104-009-19 (Sept. 1, 2020), titled “Coronavirus (COVID-19)

Pandemic: Work Eligible for Public Assistance (Interim),” superseded the March 2020 Fact

Sheet for “work performed on or after September 15, 2020.” FEMA Exhibit 1 at 1. For

work “[p]rior to this date, policies in place when the work was completed [would] apply.”

Id. at 2. Because the costs at issue in this arbitration run from March through June 2020, this

policy is not applicable here.

On April 5, 2021, FEMA issued Policy FP 104-21-0003, titled “Coronavirus

(COVID-19) Pandemic: Safe Opening and Operation Work Eligible for Public Assistance

(Interim)” (FEMA Safe O&O Policy). See FEMA Exhibit 3. Pursuant to a revision to that

policy issued September 8, 2021, the FEMA Safe O&O Policy applied to work conducted

from January 20, 2020 (the beginning of the incident period) until the declared conclusion

of the disaster. Id. at 2.

II.

The City’s EOC Activities

On January 30, 2026, as concerns about what became known as the COVID-19 virus

were increasing, the City activated its EOC, which was located at 1011 Turk Street in

San Francisco. Applicant Exhibit 23 ¶ 3. The Turk Street EOC could accommodate

approximately fifty people in normal situations but far less than that when social distancing

was required. Id. The City’s 911 call center was also located at 1011 Turk Street. Id. As

the virus spread and the number of infections increased, the City determined that, because

of the health risks to employees at the combined EOC/911 call center due to the small size

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of the Turk Street space, it was not feasible for the EOC, which served as a unified command

center, to remain at that location.

Accordingly, on March 16, 2020, the City relocated its EOC to the much larger

Moscone Convention Center South, where it remained until June 30, 2021 (although the

City’s claims here run from March 2020 through only June 2020). Applicant Exhibit 23 ¶ 3.

The City also brought significantly more workers into the EOC than when the EOC was

stationed at Turk Street but worked to adopt and enforce appropriate social distancing

requirements. The City owns the Moscone Center, which is normally used year round as a

conference and special events venue. Applicant Exhibit 21 at 1. Nevertheless, the City had

a management agreement with the Moscone Center Joint Venture (MCJV) to operate the

property on the City’s behalf. Under the management agreement, the City “is generally

responsible for costs of operation of the Convention Center in accordance with an approved

budget,” as well as “necessary capital expenditures,” Request for Arbitration (RFA) Exhibit

4 at 00018, while the MCJV receives a management fee, can enter into agreements to rent

out the convention center, and can run food and beverage concessions and merchandise

operations (with a percentage of sales being returned to the City). Id. at 00021, 00062-63.

Between March and June 2020, to reconfigure and set up the south building of the

Moscone Center as an EOC, the City paid for MCJV contract labor, which worked to install

various protective barriers, install telecom and internet lines, upgrade electrical and A/V

capabilities, and perform other necessary work in the building. The City also decided to

provide meals at the EOC for its employees because of what it believed were the scarce

options for the purchase of nearby food while working. Separately, outside the context of

the EOC, the City purchased cleaning and infection-protective supplies as EPMs for various

facilities and pulled some of its existing straight-time force account labor (FAL) from other

projects to assist in establishing EPMs.

III.

The City’s Requests for PA Funding

As owner of the Moscone Center, the City did not claim any lease costs for the space.

Applicant Exhibit 21 at 1. It also paid all base maintenance and operating costs to the MCJV,

which it was obligated to do under its pre-COVID management agreement with the MCJV,

and did not seek PA funding for those costs. Id.

The City submitted a request for PA funding of $35,143,959.32 for costs associated

with using the Moscone Center as its EOC (including contract costs that the City paid the

MCJV for the City’s use of the Center) and separately submitted a request for PA funding

of $37,826,272.83 for costs incurred for EPMs, some of which related to facilities other than

the EOC (including straight-time FAL, purchased materials, and the cost of renting portable

CBCA 8853-FEMA

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toilets and handwashing stations at a field medical care center) and some of which related

to the EOC itself (including meals that the City provided employees at the EOC). In total,

the City sought PA funding of $72,970,232.15.

On April 5, 2025, FEMA issued a determination memorandum (DM) denying

$2,682,313.51 of the $37,826,272.83 in costs that the City had requested to support EOCand non-EOC-related EPMs. FEMA Exhibit 5. On June 19, 2025, FEMA issued a DM

denying $3,119,236.05 of the City’s $35,143,959.32 request for its Moscone Center EOC

costs, asserting that the denied amount was tied to what FEMA described as the City’s

“request for reimbursement for the cost of using its own facility” and finding that the City

had failed to demonstrate how the costs of operating an EOC at its own facility related to

eligible COVID-19 EPMs. FEMA Exhibit 4 at 1, 3.

On August 13 and September 23, 2025, the California Governor’s Office of

Emergency Services (Cal OES or grantee) submitted to FEMA the City’s first appeals of the

two DM denials. In its August 13 appeal, the City disputed $2,023,218.48 of the

$2,682,313.51 that FEMA had denied, and, in the September 23 appeal, it sought recovery

of all $3,119,236.05 that FEMA had denied. On January 27, 2026, the FEMA Region 9

Regional Administrator denied, in its entirety, the City’s September 23 appeal seeking

$3,119,236.05 in funding. See RFA Exhibit 1. On March 3, 2026, the Regional

Administrator partially granted the August 13 appeal by awarding an additional “$108,422.52

in costs associated with laundering related expenses for uniforms, washers and dryers, and

hand sanitizer” but otherwise denied the appeal. RFA Exhibit 2 at 00006.

IV.

Proceedings Before the Board

On March 30, 2026, the City filed a RFA with the Board, challenging the two appeal

decisions in a consolidated filing and seeking to require FEMA to increase by $5,034,032.01

(that is, the $3,119,236.05 and $2,023,218.48 sought in the August 13 and September 23

appeals, less the $108,422.52 amount granted in the August 13 appeal) the amount obligated

as PA funding for the operation of the City’s EOC at the Moscone Center from March

through June 2020 and for field clinic operations that had been denied in the two first

appeals. FEMA filed its response to the RFA on April 30, 2026; the City filed its reply on

May 14, 2026; and FEMA filed a surreply on May 28, 2026.

At the parties’ request, the Board conducted a hearing in this matter on July 16, 2026,

at which the City presented testimony from two witnesses: (1) ChiaYu Ma, who was the

Chief Financial Officer of the City’s Technology Information System (TIS) at the time of the

disaster and who testified about TIS’s budgetary treatment of reassigned temporary

employees used to provide EPM services; and (2) Adrienne Bechelli, the Chief Deputy

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Director of San Francisco Department of Emergency Management, who testified about the

reasons that the City had moved its EOC, which the City called its “COVID Command

Center” (CCC), to the Moscone Center and the reason that it incurred the costs for which it

was seeking PA funding. FEMA elected not to present any witnesses at the hearing but

provided oral argument in support of its positions in this matter. The Board subsequently

requested some clarifying information from the City, which the City filed on August 5, 2026.

Discussion

I.

COVID-Related Category B EPM Funding

FEMA may provide PA funding for EPMs that are necessary to save lives and protect

public health and safety. 44 CFR 206.225(a)(1) (2024). For EPMs to be eligible for PA

funding, the applicant must establish that work was required as a result of an immediate

threat resulting from the declared incident. Id. 206.223(a)(1), 206.225(a)(3)(I); PAPPG

at 19, 57-58.

The costs for which the City seeks PA funding here were incurred between March and

June 2020. FEMA issued two policies governing COVID-related PA funding that

supplement the PAPPG and that are applicable to the costs that the City claims here as having

been incurred during that period of time: (1) the March 2020 Fact Sheet and (2) the FEMA

Safe O&O Policy. The March 2020 Fact Sheet specifically identified costs incurred to

support EOCs as eligible for PA funding. March 2020 Fact Sheet at 1. The FEMA Safe

O&O Policy lists a number of specific types of costs, such as the purchase and distribution

of face masks, cleaning and disinfection, and COVID-19 diagnostic testing, as eligible for

funding. FEMA Safe O&O Policy at 5.

II.

The City’s EOC Relocation Costs

A.

Eligibility of Work to Establish and Operate the Moscone Center EOC

In the PAPPG, FEMA recognizes that “Emergency Operation Center (EOC)-related

costs” incurred in response to a presidentially-declared disaster are a part of the “emergency

protective measures and costs that are eligible” for PA funding. PAPPG at 58.

When the pandemic was beginning to spread, the City activated its EOC in a building

on Turk Street, which shared space with the City’s 911 call center. The City asserts that,

soon thereafter, it realized that it could not continue to use its Turk Street facility as its EOC

because it was too small to allow individuals to maintain sufficient distance from one

another, which was a then-prevailing safety protocol. The City decided that the much larger

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Moscone Center was a much better place from which to run an EOC during the COVID-19

pandemic because it would allow the City to bring in a significantly larger group of

employees to assist in the COVID-19 response than originally designated and would allow

for appropriate distancing between individuals. The City seeks PA funding for the cost of

retrofitting the south building of the Moscone Center as an EOC and of moving the EOC

from Turk Street to the Moscone Center.

FEMA denied the bulk of the City’s request for PA funding as inconsistent with the

PAPPG. FEMA acknowledges that, under the PAPPG, if a state or local government

“provides essential community services at a facility that is unsafe . . . as a result of the

incident, temporar[y] relocation of these services to another facility is eligible” for PA

funding. PAPPG at 76. FEMA argues, though, that the City “has not satisfied the PAPPG’s

requirements to show that the original facility was ‘unsafe, inaccessible, or destroyed as a

result of the [COVID-19] incident.’” FEMA’s Surreply Brief (May 28, 2026) at 5 (quoting

PAPPG at 76). In addition, FEMA also cites to another PAPPG provision requiring that

“[t]he capacity of the temporary facility must not exceed the pre-disaster capacity of the

facility that housed the displaced services.” PAPPG at 77. It argues that, because the

Moscone Center offered significantly greater square footage and capacity than Turk Street,

the transfer of the EOC to Moscone Center is ineligible for PA funding. FEMA’s position

is that the City was required to attempt to retrofit the Turk Street space, as best as possible,

for continued use as the EOC or to move to a different space of no greater size than Turk

Street. Under FEMA’s view, satisfying the then-common safety guidance for mandatory

physical distancing between individuals by opening a new larger EOC is ineligible for PA

funding.

The circumstances here highlight the awkwardness of attempting to apply the

language in the PAPPG to the COVID-19 pandemic, which clearly was not written with that

type of disaster in mind. See Joint Meeting of Essex and Union Counties, CBCA

7407-FEMA, 22-1 BCA ¶ 38,223, at 185,643 (discussing how “the PAPPG was written with

natural disasters, fires, and floods in mind rather than a pandemic like COVID-19”). The

concept of maintaining the same facility size when transferring to a new temporary building

seems tied to the destruction or loss of the original facility and the need to move into

temporary quarters while the original is being repaired or restored. Here, the Turk Street

building was not destroyed. It just was not feasible for use as an EOC during the COVID-19

pandemic. In light of the nature of the disaster at issue here, it is difficult to square FEMA’s

position that the City was unable to expand the square footage of its EOC to accommodate

the then-common safety guidance to maintain distance between individuals to reduce the

likelihood of spreading the virus with FEMA’s mission of assisting state and local

governments to “save lives [and] protect public health [and] safety.” PAPPG at 58. FEMA’s

suggestion that PA funding would be available only to attempt to retrofit the small Turk

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Street space into something useable, without expanding its size, clearly would not have been

workable, given then-current safety protocols.

Reading FEMA’s policy guidance as a whole, we reject the argument that the City was

barred from seeking PA funding for increasing its available square footage to create a safer

EOC in the circumstances here. We interpret the PAPPG and FEMA’s supplementary

COVID-19 policies “in line with meeting the goals behind the PA program[,] . . . consistent

with the President’s emergency declaration and subsequent major disaster declaration.” Joint

Meeting of Essex and Union Counties, 22-1 BCA at 185,644. The PAPPG makes clear that,

when a disaster strikes, a state or local government can establish an EOC to coordinate

disaster relief activities and that the costs of establishing that EOC, including the costs to

lease a facility, are eligible for PA funding:

The Applicant may use its EOC to direct and coordinate resources and

response activities for a period of time. Response activities conducted at

EOCs are eligible provided they are associated with eligible work. Costs

associated with operating the EOC are also eligible, including, but not limited

to:

•

•

•

•

Increased utility costs

Costs to lease a facility

Supply costs

Meal costs, as described in Chapter 2: VI.B.8

PAPPG at 62 (emphasis added). At one point during the hearing in this matter, FEMA

suggested that perhaps the City could have maintained Turk Street but opened a second EOC

elsewhere, splitting the EOC’s functions between locations. Presumably, costs associated

with opening a second EOC would have been eligible for PA funding under the PAPPG. In

fact, in a recent second appeal decision in another matter, FEMA did just that, authorizing

PA funding for costs incurred at several EOCs that a state established and opened in response

to the COVID-19 disaster. See FEMA Second Appeal Decision, Harris County,

FEMA-4485-DR-TX, GMP 698842 (Mar. 4, 2025) (providing PA funding for EOC costs

where the Applicant had “established EOCs in multiple locations to address the COVID-19

pandemic response and significantly expanded emergency response staffing”)

(https://www.fema.gov/appeal/immediate-threat-104 (last visited Sept. 15, 2026)).

Although FEMA views the costs of establishing an EOC at the Moscone Center as a

transfer of work from the Turk Street building, it seems clear that the COVID-19 pandemic

created a situation that required the City to establish a new and expanded EOC from what it

had in place. The City referred to the Moscone Center EOC as its CCC, which was limited

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to and focused exclusively on dealing with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the

City’s population. It allowed for life-saving safety protocols that the Turk Street EOC, which

also housed the City’s 911 call center and other City services (which did not move to the

Moscone Center), could not have accommodated. We view the EOC that the City established

at the Moscone Center not as one that transferred from Turk Street but as a new type of EOC,

focused on COVID-19, that required very different safety protocols from what was

previously required. The PAPPG provides that, for a new EOC, costs associated with leasing

a facility to host the EOC are eligible for PA funding. PAPPG at 62. In light of the nature

of the disaster at issue here and the need at the time for social distancing, we cannot accept

FEMA’s position that the Moscone Center’s use as an EOC is ineligible for PA funding

simply because it had a significantly larger square footage than the Turk Street space.

With regard to FEMA’s position that it was unnecessary from a safety standpoint for

the City’s EOC to move to the Moscone Center, we reject it. The Turk Street facility could

accommodate only about fifty people before COVID-19 and even less than that when social

distancing became necessary. Applicant Exhibit 37 (Written Direct Testimony of Adrienne

Bechelli (July 7, 2026) (Bechelli Testimony) ¶ 6). During the pandemic, hundreds of people,

and sometimes up to several hundred at a time, were required to staff the EOC. Id. Evidence

that the City placed into the record and photographs of the Moscone Center EOC seen in

newspaper articles to which the City has cited in its briefing show the large increase in

activity and number of engaged individuals from what a pre-COVID EOC would have seen.

We cannot ignore the well-known safety guidance that was in place early in the pandemic.

The City’s decision to open its EOC at the Moscone Center was reasonable from a safety

standpoint, and the work necessary to open and operate that facility is eligible for PA

funding.

We address the costs that the City claims it incurred to perform that eligible work

below.

B.

Specific EOC Costs Incurred

1.

“Management” (Contract Labor) Costs

a.

Treating “Management” Costs as a Substitute for Rent

The City seeks PA funding of $1,260,787.28 for what it describes as “management”

costs for the Moscone Center EOC, which it believes it should be reimbursed as a substitute

for rent. Because the City owns the Moscone Center, the City did not pay rent to use it.

Nevertheless, the City had a pre-existing management agreement in place with the MCJV

through which the MCJV was managing and operating the Center. Under its management

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agreement, the City paid the MCJV an annual fee to manage and operate the Moscone

Center, RFA Exhibit 4 at 00021, but the City still remained “generally responsible for costs

of operation of the Convention Center in accordance with an approved budget,” for “all

necessary capital expenditures,” and “for the cost of all capital improvements.” Id. at 00018,

00024.1

The City asserts that the costs underlying the $1,260,787.28 figure for which it seeks

PA funding were incurred for MCJV employee labor (plus benefits) that the MCJV used to

set up and operate the Center, as part of its management agreement, from March to June

2020:

The $1,250,787.28 claimed . . . is for labor provided by MCJV to make the

Moscone Center operational as an EOC. . . . [T]his included workers to clean

and sanitize the site according to COVID-specific protocols, provide security,

and reconfigure spaces as the pandemic—and the resulting needs at the

EOC—evolved over time.

Applicant’s Supplemental Information Submission (Aug. 5, 2026) at 2 (citing Bechelli

Testimony ¶ 8); see RFA at 13 (“The City incurred $1,260,787.28 in contract labor costs

required to operate the EOC” at the Moscone Center.). The City claims that, “[r]ather than

negotiating an entirely new [management] agreement [with the MCJV], the City utilized its

pre-existing . . . agreement that required [certain] payment terms in order to stand up the

EOC as quickly as possible due to the threat posed to the community by COVID-19.” RFA

at 14.2 “In other words,” it explains, “the costs incurred for the MCJV to manage and operate

the temporary EOC space was the cost to lease the facility.” Id. “Since costs to lease a

temporary facility to house an EOC are eligible under the PAPPG,” the City argues, “the

claimed temporary facility management and operation contract labor is eligible,” without

regard to whether such costs would normally qualify for PA funding. Id. at 14-15.

We reject the City’s position that we render MCJV labor or “management” costs as

automatically eligible for PA funding, without identification of the actual work performed,

1

The term “capital expenditures” is defined in the management agreement as

“all expenditures for building additions, alterations or improvements, and for purchases of

additional or replacement furniture, machinery or equipment.” RFA Exhibit 4 at 00025.

2

In its RFA, the City repeatedly refers to its agreement with the MCJV as a

“lease agreement.” A review of the agreement makes clear that it is a management

agreement through which the City pays the MCJV an annual management fee to manage and

operate the Moscone Center building, not a lease. See RFA Exhibit 4.

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by treating the costs as a substitute for a lease. Although lease costs for an EOC used in

response to a disaster are eligible for PA funding, PAPPG at 62, the City incurred no lease

costs because it owns the building in which it opened its COVID-19 EOC. We cannot accept

the City’s view that we should pretend that contract labor costs of more than $1 million were

a substitute for rental costs and that we can award them, in total, without any evaluation of

whether the actual costs incurred are of a type eligible for PA funding. The City has cited

no provisions within the PAPPG that would allow FEMA (or the panel) to create such a legal

fiction. The City can obtain PA funding for the contract labor costs only if it can establish

the eligibility of those costs.

b.

Contract Labor Eligibility

“FEMA provides PA funding for contract costs based on the terms of the contract if

the Applicant meets Federal procurement and contracting requirements.” PAPPG at 30. The

City tells us that the MCJV, pursuant to its management contract with the City, billed it for

the labor costs that it incurred in transforming the Moscone Center into an EOC. According

to the City, “[a]ll of the employees providing the covered labor [totaling $1,260,787.28] were

MCJV employees, not City employees—i.e., contract (not force account) labor.” Applicant’s

Supplemental Information Submission at 3. The City acknowledges that it “does not know

whether the individuals providing the labor were existing or temporary MCJV employees.”

Id. Nevertheless, it asserts that “[a]s the employees were contractors, the status of each

employee is irrelevant to the eligibility of the costs” because, pursuant to policy, FEMA

“provides PA funding for contract costs based on the terms of the contract.” Id. (citing

PAPPG at 30). Because the City’s management contract required it to pay all operations

costs at the Moscone Center, the contract labor costs are, according to the City, automatically

eligible for PA funding.

FEMA’s main argument in challenging the City’s eligibility for PA funding for these

costs is that these contract labor costs are ineligible because the transfer of the EOC to the

Moscone Center is not eligible for PA funding. As previously discussed, we reject FEMA’s

argument about the eligibility of the Moscone Center EOC.

FEMA also objects to costs associated with opening and retrofitting the Moscone

Center because they “simply represent ineligible increased operating costs.” FEMA’s

Surreply Brief at 5. To the extent that FEMA is claiming that, because it operated an EOC

before COVID-19, costs incurred during COVID-19 cannot be considered anything but an

ineligible increase in operating costs, the PAPPG conflicts with that position. The PAPPG

appears to treat EOCs differently than other types of facilities, generally providing funding

for increased costs without regard to the limitations that it imposes on such funding for other

facilities. See PAPPG at 62. Even if an EOC was considered to be like any other facility,

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the PAPPG provides that, if an applicant “incur[s] additional costs related to operating a

facility as a result of the incident because of an increased demand for the services the facility

provides,” PAPPG at 60, such costs are eligible for PA funding if they meet the following

criteria:

•

•

•

The services are specifically related to eligible emergency actions to

save lives or protect public health and safety or improved property;

The costs are for a limited period of time based on the exigency of the

circumstances; and

The Applicant tracks and documents the additional costs.

PAPPG at 60-61. Included in that list are “EOC facility costs (e.g., utilities).” Id. at 61.

Here, we have already found that the reconstituted EOC was necessary for safety reasons and

was designed to save lives. Further, the EOC at the Moscone Center operated for a limited

period, running from March 2020 through July 2021 (although the costs claimed here run

from March 2020 through only June 2020). To the extent that the City can document

increased costs from work necessary to open and operate the EOC during the period at issue

here, they would be eligible for PA funding.

c.

The City’s Contract Labor Cost Support

FEMA finally objects that the City has not established what work the contract labor

performed or that all of it was associated with and necessary for the establishment or

operation of the Moscone Center EOC. In one of the two first appeal decisions giving rise

to this arbitration matter, FEMA noted that “the operations summary and invoices [that the

City submitted to FEMA] reflect only the costs paid to the [MCJV] without identifying the

actual work performed,” meaning that the City has failed to “demonstrat[e] how the services

were directly tied to eligible emergency protective measures.” RFA Exhibit 1 at 00003.

Under the PAPPG, to support a claim for necessary contract costs, the applicant

should provide a copy of its contract with the vendor, identify the dates worked, and, “[f]or

time and materials (T&M) contracts, [provide] monitoring information.” PAPPG at 139

(table 10). Regardless of whether the City’s management contract with the MCJV was a

T&M contract on its face, it was applied in that manner, with the City and the MCJV

agreeing that the City would reimburse the MCJV for all labor costs that the MCJV incurred

in converting the Moscone Center into an EOC. See Information Systems & Networks Corp.

v. United States, 64 Fed. Cl. 599, 605 (2005) (“In a time and materials type contract, the

contractor provides ‘supplies or services on the basis of (1) direct labor hours at specified

fixed hourly rates that include wages, overhead, general and administrative expenses, and

profit and (2) materials at cost.’” (quoting 48 CFR 16.601 (1998)).

CBCA 8853-FEMA

13

As even the City acknowledges, there are problems with the City’s contract labor

record-keeping. As far as we can tell, the City has no documentation showing what the

MCJV contract labor did at any given time—it has presented no “monitoring information”

showing what work was performed, in which portion of the EOC it was performed at any

given time, when it was performed, or who performed it. The City admits that it does not

even “know whether the individuals providing the labor were existing or temporary MCJV

employees.” Applicant’s Supplemental Information Submission at 3. That lack of

documentation is problematic to the City’s funding request. See City and County of San

Francisco, California, CBCA 8852-FEMA, slip op. at 5 (Aug. 25, 2026) (FEMA policy

requires an applicant seeking funding for contractor costs to show the “‘who, what, when,

where, why, and how much’ for each item claimed.” (quoting PAPPG at 133)).

That being said, it is clear from the evidentiary record and the testimony at the hearing

that at least a significant portion of the contract labor work performed was necessary to

convert the Moscone Center into a COVID-related EOC. Although we recognize that “[i]t

is the applicant’s obligation to provide sufficient documentation to support recovery on

claimed costs,” Pedernales Electric Cooperative, Inc., CBCA 8383-FEMA, 25-1 BCA

¶ 38,867, at 189,153 (citing City of Miami Beach, Florida, CBCA 8205-FEMA, 25-1 BCA

¶ 38,738, at 188,324-25), the City in this case has provided documentation showing that it

actually incurred the claimed contract labor costs, and it is clear that at least a significant

portion of that work related to the Moscone Center EOC conversion.

In its DM and first-appeal decision, FEMA’s main opposition to the City’s PA

funding request was the alleged ineligibility of the Moscone Center EOC itself, based on the

increase in size from the Turk Street EOC. The documentary support for the contract labor

costs was not a central focus, and FEMA devoted little time to reviewing contract labor

records to determine whether some of those costs, were the transfer of the EOC to the

Moscone Center deemed eligible for PA funding, would support recovery. With a poorly

developed record on this point, and because it is clear that a significant portion of the

contract labor time was devoted to eligible Moscone Center EOC set-up work, we believe

it appropriate to return this matter to FEMA for further development and review. See, e.g.,

Sevier County, Tennessee, CBCA 8292-FEMA, 25-1 BCA ¶ 38,877, at 189,227 (returning

matter to FEMA for further development of a particular cost claim); Pedernales Electric,

25-1 BCA at 189,154, 189,158 (same); Charlotte County, Florida, CBCA 8405-FEMA, 25-1

BCA ¶ 38,840, at 189,009 (same).

During that review, the City will need to account for those costs that the City would

have incurred for the operation (or non-operation) of the Moscone Center even if it had not

been used as an EOC. As noted above, a provision in the City’s pre-COVID management

agreement with the MCJV for the Moscone Center provided that the “City is generally

CBCA 8853-FEMA

14

responsible for costs of operation of the Convention Center in accordance with an approved

budget.” RFA Exhibit 4 at 00018. It seems clear that, during the early stages of the

COVID-19 pandemic, the City would still have incurred some contract labor costs through

the MCJV to maintain a facility the size of the Moscone Center, even if it had been closed

to public access. Under the PAPPG, an applicant can recover only the “additional costs” of

operating a facility, above and beyond what the applicant would have paid absent the disaster.

PAPPG at 60 (emphasis added). The City tells us that it has extracted from its PA funding

request all base costs that it would have incurred had it not used the Moscone Center as an

EOC, see Bechelli Testimony ¶ 7; Applicant Exhibit 21 at 1, but it never identifies what costs

it incurred but did not charge FEMA, their amount, or any calculations showing how the

costs not requested compare either in type or amount to the costs actually being requested.

That means that we have no ability, based on evidentiary support in the record, to confirm

the City’s assertion. Further, it appears from the City’s submissions that the “base operating

costs” that it excluded from its PA funding request relate solely to “licenses, subscriptions,

taxes, insurance, and non-event-specific supplies.” Applicant’s Supplemental Information

Submission at 3 n.1. Those seem unlikely to be the only Moscone Center costs for which the

City would have been responsible had it not converted the Center into an EOC—ongoing

maintenance and security, if not other activities, would have still been required even if the

building had been temporarily shuttered. To the extent that, upon further review, FEMA

finds that the City has not provided evidence of the costs that it would have incurred absent

the Moscone Center’s conversion to an EOC, it may consider that factor as part of its PA

funding analysis.

2.

Utilities

The City seeks $19,603.06 in PA funding for utility costs ($8474.50 for water and

$11,128.56 for trash) that the MCJV charged while the Moscone Center was being used as

an EOC. See RFA at 5, 18; RFA Exhibit 10 at 00087. Normally, “FEMA does not provide

PA funding for utility, maintenance, or operating costs in a temporary facility, even if these

costs increase.” PAPPG at 79. Increased utility costs for an EOC are an exception to that

rule. Id. at 60-61, 62. Accordingly, increased utility costs, beyond what the City would

normally incur for utilities at the site, are eligible.

One of FEMA’s stated reasons for denying these costs was that, because the Moscone

Center was larger than the Turk Street EOC, any costs incurred to transfer the EOC to the

Moscone Center and then use it as an EOC are automatically ineligible for PA funding. See

FEMA’s Response Brief at 19 (“[N]othing in FEMA policy would allow for the payment of

the Applicant’s transition to the convention center in this matter or the utility costs incurred

at that location.”). We rejected that position above. The City was entitled to open a new

CBCA 8853-FEMA

15

EOC. Costs incurred to establish and operate that new EOC are not ineligible simply because

the new EOC is larger than the original.

Nevertheless, as discussed above, an applicant can recover only the “additional costs”

of operating a facility, above and beyond what the applicant would have paid absent the

disaster. PAPPG at 60 (emphasis added); see id. at 62 (defining as eligible “[i]ncreased

utility costs” at an EOC). The City was responsible for operating costs at the Moscone

Center before it opened the EOC there, and it has provided us with no specific information

identifying what it was paying monthly for utilities there before the COVID-19 pandemic or

what utility costs it would have incurred had the City not opened its EOC there. Instead, the

City says merely that it “is entitled to reimbursement for the costs that are directly attributable

to the emergency use of the facility as an EOC, distinct from its preexisting obligations.”

Applicant’s Reply Brief at 13-14.3 We disagree. The City cannot receive funding for utility

costs that it would have incurred even if it had not opened an EOC at the Moscone Center.

As noted above, “[i]t is the applicant’s obligation to provide sufficient documentation

to support recovery on claimed costs.” Pedernales Electric, 25-1 BCA at 189,153. The City

provides no estimate, much less evidence, of what utility costs it would have incurred.

Normally, its failure to do so means that the City has failed to satisfy its burden of proof for

PA funding. Nevertheless, since we are returning this matter to FEMA to review the City’s

contract labor support, the City may present additional information to FEMA during that

review to attempt to establish what the increase in its utility costs was. See Sevier County,

Tennessee, 25-1 BCA at 189,227; Pedernales Electric, 25-1 BCA at 189,154.

3.

Rented A/V Equipment

The City seeks $603,045.23 in PA funding to cover the costs of equipment rented to

allow it to provide critical emergency response activities at the EOC, including A/V

equipment required by EOC staff to monitor conditions in the City, communicate with

relevant entities, and generate and broadcast public safety messages. See RFA at 18; RFA

Exhibit 19. The City paid that amount directly to MCJV to reimburse it for its payment to

Projection Technology, a company that provided the A/V equipment and the labor necessary

to install and configure it. The City’s records reflect that, during each week beginning

March 16 and running the week of June 29, 2020, the City incurred A/V equipment rental

3

During an opening statement at the July 16 hearing, the City asserted that the

utility costs which the City seeks here are those that were above and beyond the utility costs

normally incurred at the Moscone Center. We can find nothing in the evidentiary record

supporting that statement.

CBCA 8853-FEMA

16

and associated labor costs in the identified amounts at the EOC.

Supplemental Information Submission at 5-6.

See Applicant’s

“When the Applicant leases equipment, FEMA provides PA funding based on the

terms of the lease.” PAPPG at 28. “Leasing costs are eligible if . . . [t]he Applicant

performed an analysis of the cost of leasing versus purchasing the equipment; and . . . [t]he

total leasing costs do not exceed the cost of purchasing and maintaining equipment during

the life of the eligible project.” Id. (footnote omitted).

In addition to its position that the use of the Moscone Center as an EOC is ineligible

for PA funding, a position that we have already rejected, FEMA argues that the City’s

documentation to support it’s A/V costs is insufficient to demonstrate the necessity of the

work or how it is directly tied to an eligible facility. FEMA’s Response Brief at 21-22. Yet,

like its review of the City’s contract labor costs, FEMA has never effectively reviewed the

City’s support for these costs. It originally denied them because the Moscone Center EOC

was, in its view, not an eligible facility. We return this cost claim to FEMA for further

review and evaluation. See Sevier County, Tennessee, 25-1 BCA at 189,227; Pedernales

Electric, 25-1 BCA at 189,154.

4.

Facility Internet, Telecom, and Electrical Service Alterations

The City asserts that it incurred $595,991.70 in costs needed to make temporary

alterations to the Moscone Center’s electrical, telecom, and internet systems to accommodate

the needs of the Center’s use as an EOC. RFA at 21; RFA Exhibit 14; Applicant’s

Supplemental Information Submission at 3. This work included installing power outlets,

establishing internet access, setting up phones consistent with established EOC protocols,

and installing a series of large briefing screens that allowed on-site EOC staff to track known

disease spread and the availability of isolation and quarantine rooms in the area. RFA

at 21-22; Bechelli Testimony ¶ 8. The City alleges that “[w]ithout these services, the EOC

could not have functioned properly due to the needs of the EOC for electricity and broadband

exceeding the capabilities” of the Center. RFA at 21-22.

Putting aside its argument about the ineligibility of the Moscone Center as an EOC,

which we have previously rejected, FEMA argues that the City has failed to submit sufficient

documentation to meet its burden of showing that the requested costs were tied directly to

eligible EPMs, FEMA’s Surreply Brief at 8-11, even though it does not challenge that the

costs claimed were actually incurred. The City’s descriptions of the work performed makes

it clear that the work was tied to the establishment of the Moscone Center EOC. Further,

FEMA has previously recognized that “[a]s part of operating EOCs and temporary medical

facilities, necessary supply costs, including IT supplies such as computers, are eligible.”

CBCA 8853-FEMA

17

Second Appeal Decision, Harris County, FEMA-4485-DR-TX, GMP 698842 (Mar. 4, 2025).

We return this claim to FEMA to reconsider the extent to which the claimed costs are eligible

for PA funding. See Sevier County, Tennessee, 25-1 BCA at 189,227; Pedernales Electric,

25-1 BCA at 189,154.

5.

Supplies for the EOC

The City seeks $55,740.39 for disinfecting supplies, such as Clorox wipes, that were

used to disinfect the EOC between March and June 2020. RFA at 18; RFA Exhibit 11.

FEMA policy specifically authorizes funding for that type of activity “in excess of the

Applicant’s regularly budgeted costs.” FEMA Safe O&O Policy at 5; see March 2020 Fact

Sheet at 1-2 (authorizing “[EOC] costs” including “[d]isinfection of eligible public

facilities”). FEMA’s sole objection to paying these costs is that the Moscone Center EOC

is not an eligible facility, an argument that we have already rejected. FEMA has not

questioned whether these costs were actually incurred. These costs are eligible for PA

funding.

6.

Meals for EOC Workers

The City seeks PA funding to cover $982,956.47 in costs for meals that the City

provided to EOC workers during the first four months of the EOC’s Moscone Center

operation. RFA at 24; RFA Exhibit 16. Of that amount, the City paid $584,068.39 to the

MCJV that manages the Moscone Center and $398,888.17 to various San Francisco

restaurants that delivered meals to the Moscone Center between March and June 2020. See

RFA Exhibit 16. The City alleges that, during that time, “EOC workers were working in a

high-paced environment that didn’t facilitate extended breaks for meals, hospitals were

overflowing with patients in critical condition, and uncertainty about how the virus spread

was rampant.” RFA at 22. It asserts that “[b]ecause the EOC played such a critical role in

the COVID-19 emergency response, the City could not afford to have COVID-19 spread

through the EOC and render critical staff unable to perform the[ir] response coordination

activities.” Id. at 23. It also asserts that “EOC employees were working extended/abnormal

hours” on “quick turnaround tasks that did not provide a reasonable amount of time for

employees to provide their own meals.” Id. at 23-24. The City tells us that it “thus

determined that COVID-19 rendered acquisition of food not reasonably available for its EOC

staff because those individuals would have put themselves and the community at significant

risk should they contract and spread COVID-19 while seeking food.” Id. at 24.

In support of its representations, the City offers the declaration of the Chief Deputy

Director of the San Francisco Department of Emergency Management, who explained why

the City believed that it needed to provide food for EOC workers from March to June 2020:

CBCA 8853-FEMA

18

During the early months of the pandemic, many food establishments in the

vicinity of the Moscone Center were closed or operating at severely reduced

capacity. Staff deployed to the COVID-19 EOC at the Moscone Center were

expected to work long hours, often having working meetings during lunchtime.

The intensity and continuity of emergency operations at the EOC left

insufficient time for employees to leave the facility, locate open food

establishments, and return while maintaining infection control protocols

throughout.

Declaration of Adrienne Bechelli (May 14, 2026) ¶ 5.

The PAPPG provides that FEMA may provide PA funding for meals brought in and

provided to employees working at an EOC if the following conditions are satisfied:

Provision of meals, including beverages and meal supplies, for employees and

volunteers engaged in eligible Emergency Work, including those at EOCs, is

eligible provided the individuals are not receiving per diem and one of the

following circumstances apply:

•

•

•

Meals are required based on a labor policy or written agreement that

meets the requirements of Chapter 2:V.A.1;

Conditions constitute a level of severity that requires employees to

work abnormal, extended work hours without a reasonable amount of

time to provide for their own meals; or

Food or water is not reasonably available for employees to purchase.

PAPPG at 63. “FEMA only reimburses the cost of meals that are brought to the work

location and purchased in a cost-effective and reasonable manner, such as bulk meals.” Id.

It is undisputed that the EOC employees did not receive per diem and that the meals

in question were brought to the EOC, meaning that the City has overcome those hurdles to

PA funding entitlement. Nevertheless, to obtain funding, the meals must also satisfy one of

the three specific circumstances identified in the PAPPG. Because it is clear that the City

did not have a labor policy or written agreement requiring it to provide meals to EOC

employees, the City has attempted to show that it meets the other two scenarios: that its EOC

employees’ work conditions were so extended and abnormal that they could not be expected

to obtain their own meals and that food was not reasonably available for purchase.

We do not doubt that, in the circumstances existing in early 2020, the City’s decision

that it should provide meals for its employees at the Moscone Center was reasonable as a

CBCA 8853-FEMA

19

means of showing appreciation for their efforts in a chaotic atmosphere. Nevertheless, the

question before us is whether the City is entitled to PA funding to reimburse it for making

that decision. The Board recently faced a similar situation in Bowling Green-Warren County

Community Hospital Corp., CBCA 8327-FEMA, 26-1 BCA ¶ 38,961 (2025), where an

applicant which ran a medical facility had contracted for food service “[f]or the continuity

of both COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 patient care during a critical staffing shortage.” Id.

at 189,667. There was no question that the facility owner’s decision to provide its staff with

food service was a reasonable discretionary action on its part, but FEMA cannot be expected

to fund costs that are incurred more for convenience and morale than absolute necessity.

Because the applicant in Bowling Green had shown only “that it incurred increased costs in

order to maintain operations,” the Board determined that the meal services were “not eligible

for PA.” Id.

We must find the same here. Although the City cites to the abnormally long hours that

employees assigned to the EOC had to work, which allegedly prevented them from having

any time to provide for their own meals, its employee time records do not provide adequate

support for that position. Further, the City indicates that a shelter-in-place health directive

from the City’s Public Health Department closed restaurants, making it impossible for

employees to obtain meals outside of the Moscone Center, but the directive contained

exceptions for grocery stores and carry-out restaurants, see RFA Exhibit 15 at 00100-02, and

more than 40% of the meal costs for which the City seeks PA funding were for food from

local bakeries, pizzerias, taquerias, and other restaurants and food services in the area. See

RFA Exhibit 16. Although we do not doubt the City’s good faith in deciding to provide

meals for its EOC workers, that does not mean that the costs incurred fit within the

parameters of FEMA’s emergency services funding policies. We, like the panel in Bowling

Green, find that their costs are not eligible for PA funding.

III.

EPM Supplies and Labor

A.

Straight-Time Temporary Employee Force Account Labor Costs

The City seeks PA funding of $117,549.18 (a reduction from its original request of

$117,808.46) for the straight-time labor-hour costs of eighty-nine temporary employees from

the City’s TIS department, whom the City assigned to work on technology projects at the

EOC in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.4 RFA at 15-17; RFA Exhibit 20. None of the

4

In its RFA, the City originally sought PA funding for the straight-time labor

costs of one additional employee who performed pandemic-related emergency protective

measures work but whose salary was funded by a state grant that allegedly could not be used

CBCA 8853-FEMA

20

eighty-nine workers was hired specifically to deal with COVID-related issues. Instead, the

City’s employment of each of those eighty-nine employees pre-dated the commencement of

the COVID-19 pandemic, each of them having been hired as temporary exempt (TEX)

employees (as opposed to permanent exempt (PEX) employees). Prior to the COVID-19

outbreak, TIS would assign each TEX employee to work a specific project for another City

department, and that City department benefitting from the work typically would either

assume responsibility for the TEX employee’s salary or reimburse TIS for the labor costs

associated with that project.

Normally, under the PAPPG, although FAL overtime costs incurred by budgeted

employees who provide emergency work in response to a disaster—whether they be

permanent employees or seasonal employees working during their normal season of

employment—might be eligible for PA funding, their straight-time FAL costs would not be.

PAPPG at 24 (fig. 11). For “unbudgeted employees” performing emergency services,

though, both overtime costs and straight-time labor-hour costs may be eligible. Id. The City

claims that the eighty-nine TEX employees who worked on technology projects at the EOC

were “unbudgeted” for reasons explained by Ms. Ma, TIS’s then-Chief Financial Officer:

At [TIS], as an internal service department, we hire PEX/TEX employees not

only to cover the regular operations, but mostly to work on capital projects

and/or work orders. Those PEX/TEX employees track their time and bill their

work by the hour to whatever the projects or work orders they are assigned to.

During the declaration of COVID emergency, we had to reassign these

employees to help support EOC and [Departmental Operations Centers]

activities, and they had to charge their hours to [the] COVID project to reflect

their actual work effort. I believe those hours should be reimbursable by

FEMA as [TIS] did not have a regular operating budget to fund these TEX

employees.

RFA Exhibit 8 at 00081. Ms. Ma expanded on that explanation in her testimony at the

hearing before the Board:

Before the pandemic, to the extent they had already been hired by the City,

these employees were temporarily assigned to City departments other than TIS

to perform specific projects based on those departments’ need for technology

to pay for EPM work. RFA at 17. In its reply brief, the City withdrew its request for PA

funding for this employee’s work. Applicant’s Reply Brief at 5. As a result, we no longer

need to address that PA funding request.

CBCA 8853-FEMA

21

services and billed their time for work they performed to those departments.

The TIS budget did not contain operating funds to pay for these employees.

Instead, the departments to which these employees were providing technology

services paid for the employees’ time.

In the early months of COVID-19, the City reassigned these employees to

work on emergency technological measures for the COVID-19 response . . . .

In working on COVID-19 emergency technology projects, these employees’

salaries were no longer funded by work orders from the other departments to

which they had previously been providing services. Instead, these employees

were now funded and billed their time to the COVID-19 response. TIS still

had no regular operating budget to fund these employees.

Applicant Exhibit 38 (Written Direct Testimony of ChiaYu Ma (July 7, 2026) ¶¶ 8-9).

In the PAPPG, FEMA identifies four types of “unbudgeted” employees potentially

eligible for PA funding: (1) an “[e]ssential employee called back from administrative leave”;

(2) a “[p]ermanent employee funded from [an] external source”; (3) a “[t]emporary employee

hired to perform eligible work”; and (4) a “[s]easonal employee working outside [the] normal

season of employment.” PAPPG at 24 (fig. 11). Because the TEX employees were not

called back from administrative leave to perform COVID-19-related work, the first category

does not apply. Because the City’s employment of the TEX employees at issue here predated the COVID-19 disaster (meaning that they were not hired specifically for the purpose

of performing work in response to that disaster) and because the temporary employees were

asked to perform COVID-related work during their “normal season of employment,” neither

of the third or fourth factors apply. Accordingly, the only way in which the straight-time

labor costs for the City’s TEX employees could qualify for PA funding is under the second

category—that is, if the City’s TEX employees were “funded from [an] external source” that

would not pay for the COVID-related work.5 That is the category under which the City relies

in seeking funding of its TEX employees’ straight-time labor costs here.

The PAPPG provides, in explaining the second category of “unbudgeted” employee,

that “[s]traight-time of a permanent employee [or presumably an in-season temporary

employee] funded from an external source (such as a grant from a Federal agency or

5

We assume, without deciding, for purposes of this decision that, although the

second category refers to “permanent” employees funded from an external source, the

rationale for allowing PA funding would apply equally to a temporary employee working

within his or her season of employment but funded from an external source.

CBCA 8853-FEMA

22

statutorily dedicated funds) is eligible if the employee is reassigned to perform eligible

Emergency Work that the external source does not fund.” PAPPG at 24. The City has not

identified any such source, external to the City itself, that funds the TEX employees. Instead,

the TEX employees were normally paid by the City but for work in departments other than

TIS, the department that was responsible for and ultimately utilized TEX employees for the

COVID-related emergency work. Yet, the applicant in this matter is not TIS. It is the City.

Nothing in the PAPPG’s description of an “external source” would allow us to find that, in

seeking PA funding, the City can focus solely on the operating budget of a particular

department within the City and then claim that, because that department utilized the

employees of other City departments to assist in emergency work, those employees were

funded by an “external source” unrelated to the using department. Clearly, by referencing

an “external source,” the PAPPG is indicating a source external to the City itself, not a source

merely external to the utilizing department. Because the TEX employees were paid by the

City, it matters not which internal department normally processed or funded their paychecks

and which one actually utilized their services during the emergency. Under the PAPPG,

unless funding for the TEX employees came from a source external to the City that the City

was unable to use to pay for the TEX employees’ disaster-related emergency work, the City

cannot claim them as “unbudgeted”—that is, “unfunded”—employees and cannot obtain PA

funding to cover their straight-time labor costs.

To support its belief that its TEX employees should be considered as unbudgeted and

therefore eligible for straight-time labor cost PA funding, the City cites to decisions in which

FEMA authorized funding to cover straight-time pay for what were described in the decisions

as unbudgeted employees. Applicant’s Reply Brief at 3-4 (citing Second Appeal Decision,

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Inc., FEMA-4468-DR-FL, GMP 130519/PW 228

(Oct. 21, 2024) (available at https://www.fema.gov/appeal/immediate-threat-force-accountlabor-equipment (last visited Sept. 15, 2026)) (describing pilots who flew emergency relief

missions with overnight stays as unbudgeted), and Second Appeal Decision, City of San

Antonio, FEMA-4586-DR-TX, GMP 184059/PW 821 (May 15, 2025) (available at

https://www.fema.gov/appeal/force-account-labor-equipment-costs-immediate-threat-28 (last

visited Sept. 15, 2026)) (describing certain police and public works employees who assisted

with emergency water distribution as unbudgeted)). The decisions to which the City cites

provide no detail about the nature of those employees’ duties and schedules or the regular

payment sources for their typical work. The vague descriptions in those decisions do not

create some kind of presumption that, because those employees were identified as

unbudgeted, the City’s TEX employees must also be considered unbudgeted.

The City also argues that, had it not needed the TEX employees to assist with

COVID-related work, it would have released or fired them as soon as the COVID-19

pandemic began because work on the regular projects to which they had been assigned shut

CBCA 8853-FEMA

23

down beginning in March 2020. The City believes that, because it did not budget for the

COVID-19 pandemic and because the City would not have continued to employ the TEX

workers but for the need to have them perform COVID-related work once the pandemic

began, the TEX workers are “unbudgeted.” That is an abject misapplication of FEMA

policy. Because, prior to the disaster, the City had included these eighty-nine TEX

employees’ labor time in its budget, they were “budgeted,” regardless of what work the City

ultimately pulled them from performing so that they could instead assist with COVID safety

efforts.

To the extent that the City believes that FEMA should adopt a policy based on

something other than the “budgeted” and “unbudgeted” employee guideline that it currently

uses, the Board does not make policy for FEMA. It applies the policies that FEMA has put

into place to ensure consistency in their application. See Franciscan Alliance, Inc.,

CBCA 7530-FEMA, 23-1 BCA ¶ 38,278, at 185,868 (“[A]s arbitrators, our job is not to

make public policy but to follow the applicable [FEMA] regulations and policy.”); New York

Society for the Relief of the Ruptured & Crippled Maintaining the Hospital for Special

Surgery, CBCA 7543, 23-1 BCA ¶ 38,268, at 185,810 (“In our role as arbitrators, we look

to determine whether FEMA has properly applied its policies in the factual circumstances

presented to us. We do not set policy for FEMA.”).

FEMA’s denial of PA funding for TEX employees here is consistent with its policy.

Because the City has not identified its TEX employees as routinely being paid by sources

external to the City itself, it has no basis for identifying them as “unbudgeted employees” for

purposes of the PAPPG. The City’s PA funding request for FAL straight-time TEX laborhour costs is denied.

B.

EPM Supplies

The City seeks PA funding for $918,430.30 in costs for supplies purchased between

March and June 2020 as EPMs, including personal protective equipment (such as gloves,

aprons, and masks), computer equipment (such as Universal Serial Bus (USB) data readers,

wristband thermal printers, healthcare point-of-care computing carts, routers, and monitors),

construction materials to build physical COVID-19 barriers for deployment across the City

(including at public transit sites), and other supplies (such as two hand trucks) necessary to

operate the EOC and coordinate the City’s pandemic response. See RFA at 19-20; RFA

Exhibit 12. Although some of these supplies were purchased for and used at the EOC itself,

others were used in temporary field offices and medical clinics across the City.

Under the PAPPG, “[c]osts associated with operating the EOC are . . . eligible,

including, but not limited to . . . [s]upply costs.” PAPPG at 62. Such supplies are “eligible

CBCA 8853-FEMA

24

if . . . [p]urchased and justifiably needed to effectively respond to and/or recover from the

incident; or . . . [t]aken from the Applicant’s stock and used for the incident.” Id. at 28. The

FEMA Safe O&O Policy goes a step further and defines specific supply costs that are eligible

for PA funding as follows:

FEMA may provide assistance to all eligible PA Applicants . . . for the

following measures implemented to facilitate the safe opening and operation

of all eligible facilities in response to COVID-19 declared events:

I.

ii.

Purchase and distribution of face masks, including cloth face coverings,

and personal protective equipment (PPE).

Cleaning and disinfection, including the purchase and provision of

necessary supplies and equipment in excess of the Applicant’s regularly

budgeted costs.

....

v.

Acquisition and installation of temporary physical barriers, such as

plexiglass barriers and screens/dividers, and signage to support social

distancing, such as floor decals.

FEMA Safe O&O Policy at 5 (footnotes omitted). The March 2020 Fact Sheet also

authorizes costs associated with “[m]ovement of supplies and persons” and “[EOC] costs,”

including “[d]isinfection of eligible public facilities.” March 2020 Fact Sheet at 1-2.

In its response to the RFA, FEMA challenged this claim by arguing that the City’s

summary documentation “fails to either demonstrate that the items were necessary to conduct

an eligible COVID-19 EPM or related to the safe opening and operating of an eligible

facility.” FEMA’s Response Brief at 21. The City replied by adding all of the invoices

supporting these requested costs to the arbitration record and subdividing them by the City

Department that incurred the costs in question. The City explained that “[d]ifferent

departments had different responsibilities in setting up the EOC,” Applicant’s Reply Brief

at 21, and it detailed each department’s EPM costs, some of which we summarize below:

•

$9432.98 in costs, supported by receipts with contemporaneous

notations by employees identifying the purpose of each purchase, that

the City’s Department of Emergency Management incurred for painter

blue tape to post COVID-19 posters and flyers outside and around the

EOC; cleaning wipes and soap dispensers for the EOC, along with

other cleaning supplies; and forehead thermometers, Ziploc bags,

CBCA 8853-FEMA

25

earbuds, headphones with built-in microphones, and light blue safety

vests for the San Francisco Joint Information Center’s Community

Outreach branch team house at the Moscone Center (Applicant

Exhibit 36; Applicant’s Reply Brief at 17-18);

•

$650,852.08 in costs, supported by receipts, that the City’s Department

of Public Health incurred for computer equipment and printers at

COVID-19 screening, isolation, and temporary clinic locations and

triage tents, plus $74,954.81 in costs, supported by receipts and also

incurred by the City’s Department of Public Health, for face masks,

disposable gloves, bathroom tissue, aprons, and a hand truck, some for

delivery to the EOC and others for delivery to field clinics (Applicant

Exhibit 25; Applicant’s Reply Brief at 18-20);

•

$57,044.63 in costs, supported by Incident Command System (ICS)

Standard Form (SF) 213 Resource Requests, receipts, and

contemporaneous written explanations of need, that the City’s

Department of Public Works incurred for security barricades, cubicle

partitions, and equipment needed to create such barricades and

partitions to reduce the opportunity for COVID-19 transmission at the

EOC (Applicant Exhibit 26; Applicant’s Reply Brief at 20-21);

•

$922.46 in costs, supported by invoices, that the City’s Department of

Human Resources incurred to purchase a printer, printer ink,

whiteboards, a dry erase pens, and glass cleaner for the EOC (Applicant

Exhibits 28, 29, 30, 31; Applicant’s Reply Brief at 23-24); and

•

$15,679.80 in costs, supported by an ICS SF 213 Resource Request,

that the City’s Department of Technology incurred for materials and

communication equipment provided by Converge One to accommodate

the increase in call center usage by the EOC (Applicant Exhibit 34 at 3;

Applicant’s Reply Brief at 26-27).

On their face, those claimed costs appear to fall within the category of eligible EPMs.

With regard to the City’s purchase of computer equipment and printers for its field clinics,

the PAPPG provides that, “[i]f the Applicant purchases equipment that it justifiably needs

to respond effectively to the incident, FEMA provides PA funding for both the purchase

price and either . . . [t]he use of the equipment based on equipment rates . . . or . . . [t]he

actual fuel and maintenance costs.” PAPPG at 26. Similarly, the incremental costs of the

types of cleaning and disinfecting supplies that the City has identified are generally eligible

CBCA 8853-FEMA

26

for PA funding. FEMA Safe O&O Policy at 5; March 2020 Fact Sheet at 2. Further, the

documentation that the City has provided appears consistent with that described in tables 7

and 10 of the PAPPG. See PAPPG at 134, 139-40.

Yet, in its surreply, FEMA tells us that the documentation is insufficient to “provide

that link” tying “those costs directly to eligible [EPMs].” FEMA’s Surreply Brief at 9. It

cites to the PAPPG, which provides that “[t]he Applicant is responsible for showing that

work is required . . . [d]ue to an immediate threat resulting from the declared incident (for

Emergency Work).” PAPPG at 19. FEMA does not tell us with any specificity what is

missing and what more it needs to make an eligibility determination in the City’s favor.

Given the nature of the documentation (including contemporaneous notations as to the

reasons for certain purchases by the individuals purchasing on behalf of the City), the

explanations from the City about the need for each of the supplies, and the fact that the

supplies at issue are clearly the types that were necessary early in the COVID-19 pandemic,

it is difficult to see what more FEMA expects. Telling the panel that there needs to be

“more,” without providing a detailed explanation identifying specific defects in the

applicant’s presentation, is not helpful to the panel. It provides us with no reasoned basis for

denying the applicant’s funding request.

In the circumstances here, we find that the EPM costs that the City has claimed are

eligible for PA funding, with the following exceptions:

First, the City seeks $3975.44 in costs that the City’s Recreation and Park Department

incurred to purchase chains and padlocks to preclude access to city parks during emergency

shelter-in-place orders. See Applicant’s Reply Brief at 24-26; Applicant Exhibits 32, 33.

Although the FEMA Safe O&O Policy allows funding for the “[a]cquisition and installation

of temporary physical barriers,” the types of barriers that it addresses are “plexiglass barriers

and screens/dividers” that would reduce the likelihood of airborne virus spread between

individuals in close proximity to one another. FEMA Safe O&O Policy at 5. If, as it

appears, the chains and padlocks were purchased to be a security measure to protect park

property, the City has not identified a basis for PA funding. Even if they were acquired to

preclude the spread of COVID-19, “FEMA does not extend emergency work eligibility to

implement community-wide mitigation efforts to reduce a future event, such as the

anticipated or potential transmission of COVID-19.” FEMA Second Appeal Decision, City

of Miami Beach, FEMA-4486-DR-FL, GMP 680008/PW 1030 (Mar. 26, 2025) (available

at https://www.fema.gov/appeal/immediate-threat-107#_ftnref11 (last visited Sept. 15,

2026)). This cost is ineligible.

Second, FEMA challenges $31,699.11 in costs that the City’s Fire Department

incurred to purchase stairchairs, cots, grocery bags, uniforms, and washing machines,

CBCA 8853-FEMA

27

asserting that the City “provides little to no explanation as to how these items are directly

related to the performance of eligible, COVID-19-related [EPMs] nor does it provide an

actual policy that allows such items.” FEMA’s Surreply Brief at 9-10. We will allow the

Fire Department’s claim for $2164.93, which represents the cost of paper bags that the City

asserts were purchased to allow for the “safe and sanitary storage of N95 masks.”

Applicant’s Reply Brief at 22. We deny PA funding for the other costs. With regard to the

purchase of new uniforms, there is no allegation that there was anything special or different

about the uniforms being purchased that would make them more protective than the

firefighters’ regular uniforms. “Increased costs of operating a facility or providing a service

are generally not eligible, even when directly related to the incident.” PAPPG at 42.

“[S]hort-term increased costs that are directly related to accomplishing specific emergency

health and safety tasks as part of emergency protective measures may be eligible,” id., but

only if the “services are specifically related to eligible emergency actions to save lives or

protect public health and safety or improved property” and “[t]he costs are for a limited

period of time based on the exigency of the circumstances.” Id. at 61. There is simply

insufficient information in the record to support PA funding for new firefighting uniforms,

new washing machines (presumably for placement at fire stations), and new stairchairs.

Third, FEMA challenges costs of $67,448.42 and $6420.36 (totaling $73,868.78) that

the City’s Department of Technology paid to two companies to set up virtual

communications platforms and obtain licenses to support “offsite/remote Board of Supervisor

. . . meetings” and “other Commission meetings.” Applicant Exhibit 34 at 1, 7; see FEMA’s

Surreply Brief at 10. FEMA asserts that “[n]one of FEMA’s PA policies, COVID-19 related

or not, list the provision of legislative or commission meetings as an eligible [EPM]” and that

“the measures fall squarely under the type [of] administrative operating costs that FEMA has

determined are outright ineligible for reimbursement.” FEMA’s Surreply Brief at 10-11.

Although the City argues, through the written testimony of one of its witnesses, that this

work promoted public health and safety by “allowing for virtual attendance of both

government officials and members of the public to reduce the spread of COVID-19,”

Bechelli Testimony ¶ 13, FEMA policy provides that activities coordinated through an EOC

are eligible only “provided they are associated with eligible work,” PAPPG at 62, which,

with regard specifically to the COVID-19 pandemic, must be “necessary to save lives and

protect public health and safety.” FEMA Safe O&O Policy at 4. FEMA has identified the

EPMs that might constitute eligible work in response to COVID-19 as the purchase and

distribution of face masks, cleaning and disinfection supplies and equipment, COVID-19

diagnostic testing, COVID-19 screening and temperature scanning, acquisition and

installation of temporary physical barriers, and the purchase of personal protective

equipment. Id. at 4-5. We cannot find anything in FEMA’s COVID-19 policies that would

extend PA funding to A/V equipment for local government commission meetings. To the

extent that the City’s documentation indicates that the EOC could have used these platforms

CBCA 8853-FEMA

28

for press conferences, the EOC was not the primary intended user of this technology. We

exclude $73,868.78 from the City’s funding request for Department of Technology costs.

Accordingly, of the City’s request for $918,430.30 in EPM supply costs, we authorize

PA funding of $811,051.90.

IV.

Portable Toilets and Handwashing Stations at a Field Care Clinic

Although the bulk of the City’s PA funding request addresses costs incurred for its

EOC at the Moscone Center, the City has also requested $51,025 in funding for the cost of

renting portable toilets and handwashing stations to support an outdoor COVID-19 testing

clinic at 2401 Keith Street. That outdoor clinic sat next door to the Southwest Family Health

Center medical facility, which sits within a fully constructed permanent building at

2403 Keith Street.

Under FEMA Policy FP 104-010-04, “Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic: Medical

Care Costs Eligible for Public Assistance” (May 2020), FEMA may provide PA funding for

medical care and associated costs related to COVID-19 diagnostic testing provided by a state

or local government. Id. at 2, 5, 9. Such costs include “eligible facility, equipment, supplies,

staffing, and wraparound services” costs. Id. at 2. “Wraparound services . . . include, but

are not limited to, . . . linen and laundry services; food preparation and delivery; biomedical

waste removal, including contaminated items such as personal protective equipment;

perimeter fencing; contracted security guards; professional cleaning; and other related

services.” Id. at 10. Included in allowable costs are administrative activities and “associated

costs” needed to allow for the provision of medical services:

For temporary and expanded medical facilities, and the specific type of

temporary medical facilities known as Alternate Care Sites, administrative

activities and associated costs necessary for the provision of essential medical

services are eligible.

Id. at 5.

FEMA acknowledges “that portable toilets and handwashing stations may qualify as

EPMs” but only if they “are necessary for safely opening and operating an eligible facility.”

FEMA’s Response Brief at 23 (citing FEMA Second Appeal Decision, City of Tallahassee,

F E MA - 4 4 8 6 - D R - F L , G M P 6 7 2 3 7 6 ( J u l y 3 , 2 0 2 5 ) (av a i l a b l e at

https://www.fema.gov/appeal/immediate-threat-123 (last visited Sept. 15, 2026)). But see

FEMA Second Appeal Decision, City and County of San Francisco, FEMA-4482-DR-CA,

GMP 710625/PW 5755 (June 4, 2026) (“Portable toilets are not an eligible emergency

CBCA 8853-FEMA

29

protective measure that is included under any of the categories in the O&O Policy.”)

(available at https://www.fema.gov/appeal/immediate-threat-153 (last visited Sept. 15,

2026)); FEMA Second Appeal Decision, City of San Luis Obispo, FEMA-4482-DR-CA,

GMP 693733/PW 2262 (Nov. 24, 2025) (finding portable toilets ineligible under the O&O

Policy) (available at https://www.fema.gov/appeal/immediate-threat-142 (last visited

Sept. 15, 2026)); FEMA Second Appeal Decision, City of Miami Beach, FEMA-4486DR-FL, GMP 680008/PW 1030 (Mar. 26, 2025) (same) (available at

https://www.fema.gov/appeal/immediate-threat-107#_ftnref11 (last visited Sept. 15, 2026)).

FEMA claims that, in this particular case, the Southeast Family Health Center adjoining the

outdoor field clinic “had restroom facilities onsite” and that the City “has not shown why

additional portable toilets and handwashing stations,” beyond what was already available,

“were necessary to operate the testing site.” FEMA’s Response Brief at 24.

Originally, during its first appeal and again in its RFA and reply brief to the Board,

the City asserted that the portable toilets and handwashing stations, which were distributed

at various locations throughout the City through a program known as the Pit Stop program,

were eligible for PA funding for the following reasons:

[W]hile there may have been restrooms directly at some sites, the volume of

people seeking services was likely to exceed those restrooms’ capacity, the

testing or vaccination sites ran during hours the host location was not open and

on-site restrooms were unavailable (e.g., weekends), or the City was requested

by the host location to provide handwashing or bathroom facilities.

RFA at 25 (citing RFA Exhibit 17). Yet, the evidence of record relating to the 2401 Keith

Street site, to the extent that it exists, conflicts with those representations. Specifically, the

City has identified the Keith Street field clinic’s operating hours as 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday

through Friday (with no service on weekends), which overlapped with and were fully

encompassed within the Southwest Family Health Center’s opening hours (8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Monday to Friday). Further, when the portable toilets were rented, COVID-19 testing at the

Keith Street clinic was on an appointment-only basis, limiting the number of people visiting

at any one time, and nothing in the record suggests that Southwest Family Health Center

requested the portable toilets or that the number of visitors making appointments

overwhelmed the site. In any event, as FEMA correctly notes, “[i]t is the Applicant’s

responsibility to provide documentation substantiating the necessity and reasonableness of

. . . measures” taken for medical purposes. FEMA’s Response Brief at 23 (citing 2 CFR

200.403(a) (2024); PAPPG at 21, 133). The City has provided no contemporaneous support

indicating why additional bathroom facilities were needed at the Keith Street site.

CBCA 8853-FEMA

30

Just before the hearing in this matter, the City identified a new reason for the portable

toilets and handwashing stations, which was to provide facilities for use by those who tested

positive for COVID-19. The City indicated that only those who tested negative could use

the Southwest Family Health Center’s indoor toilets and that it needed other restroom

facilities for those who tested positive. Even if its argument that only individuals who tested

positive for COVID-19 would use the portable toilets might appear reasonable on its face,6

that new argument, to the extent that it is not inconsistent with its earlier positions, is also

unsupported by any contemporaneous evidence in the record, such as written instructions

given at the time to on-site field clinic staff to segregate restroom facility use between

positive and negative test recipients or photographs of the portable toilets with signs

indicating use only by COVID-19 positive individuals. Without any such evidence, the City

has failed to satisfy FEMA’s documentation requirements.

Our decision here is consistent with FEMA’s recent denials in second appeal decisions

of at least two other requests from the City for PA funding for portable toilets and

handwashing stations at other field COVID-19 testing clinics that, like those at issue here,

were placed through the Pit Stop program. According to its website, the Pit Stop program

“provides clean and safe public toilets, as well as used-needle receptacles and dog waste

stations, in San Francisco’s most impacted neighborhoods.” https://sfpublicworks.org/pitstop

(last visited Sept. 15, 2026). In its second appeal decisions, FEMA found that the Pit Stop

program is “a city-wide effort that is not tied to COVID-19 testing or vaccination.” FEMA

Second Appeal Decision, City and County of San Francisco, FEMA-4482-DR-CA, GMP

710645/PW

5757

(May

11,

2026)

(available

at

https://www.fema.gov/appeal/immediate-threat-154 (last visited Sept. 15, 2026)); see FEMA

Second Appeal Decision, City and County of San Francisco, FEMA-4482-DR-CA, GMP

710645/PW

5755

(June

4,

2026)

(available

at

https://www.fema.gov/appeal/immediate-threat-153 (last visited Sept. 15, 2026)). In those

matters, the City, as it does here, asserted that, despite the availability of restrooms in

permanent buildings next to the COVID-19 testing sites, “portable restrooms were required

due to the volume of people seeking services, irregular operating hours at the testing and

vaccination sites, or due to outside requests.” FEMA denied funding after determining that

6

Given the time frames at issue here, it seems likely (although the record does

not tell us) that the City was providing polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests at its outdoor

field clinic rather than rapid tests. If so, we do not understand how the City would have the

necessary information when individuals were being tested at the field clinic to distinguish

between those testing positive and those testing negative. A PCR test must be sent to a

laboratory for analysis, and the individuals being tested would not receive their test results

until after they had departed the field clinic site.

CBCA 8853-FEMA

31

the toilets “were not at the same location as the testing and vaccination sites in question,”

meaning that, contrary to the City’s representations, they could not provide support to the

cited testing sites. The situation here is somewhat different in that the portable toilets for

which the City now seeks PA funding were, in fact, placed next to the 2401 Keith Street site.

That being said, the randomness with which the Pit Stop program was placing portable

restrooms around the City does not support the City’s assertion (without any

contemporaneous evidence) that, in this particular case, there was a special need that did not

exist in other placements.

Decision

For the foregoing reasons, the City may receive PA funding of $55,740.39 for

disinfecting supplies for the Moscone Center EOC and $811,051.90 for EPM supplies, for

a total of $866,792.29. We return the City’s requests for EOC contract labor costs, EOC

utilities, A/V equipment rental and labor costs, and EOC internet, telecom, and electrical

service alterations to FEMA for further review and evaluation. The City’s funding requests

are otherwise denied.

Harold D. Lester, Jr.

HAROLD D. LESTER, JR.

Board Judge

Patricia J. Sheridan

PATRICIA J. SHERIDAN

Board Judge

Elizabeth W. Newsom

ELIZABETH W. NEWSOM

Board Judge