48. Traditional non-emergency personnel will want to go home at 5 o'clock;
all public employees must be made to realize that they are a part of the
emergency response team.
COMMENT: This a very real problem for emergency management and other local and/or state officials. Let’s face it...staff overtime is not planned for in budgets, and taxpayers are already overburdened. A state or federal "declaration" may help...but that is usually only kicks in after local resources are exhausted.
Some paid government employees will often "change hats" and stay on with a volunteer agency such as the Red Cross or the ARES. However, since many rank-and-file disaster and other emergency volunteers work in the private sector; and are only available "after hours", the two groups can complement each other. But it does require pre-planning and cooperation between the public and private sector.