Comment Submitted by Darlene Cipriana Trammell, Arizona Division of Emergency Management

Currently, states must update and submit a hazard mitigation plan to FEMA for re-approval every three years. Since the required process takes a significant amount of time, Arizona is in a perpetual state of planning. This takes a lot time, effort, resources and money from various stakeholders statewide when the meat of the plan, which is the risk assessment, does not change substantially within those three years. Since 2003, Arizona has spent over $310,000 developing and updating the State's hazard mitigation plan. In the same timeframe, we've spent over $2.2 million for the State, local and tribal plans. These amounts include both Federal and non-federal funds. There is very little return on the invesment with such a short planning cycle. Also, with Federal mitigation funds and other potential pots of money dwindling, only a very small amount of projects actually get funded. I highly encourage the change from a three year hazard mitigation planning cycle to a five year planning cycle. A seven year cycle would be even better.