Recent rulings at the state and federal level require regional medical health mutual aid agreements to be in place to qualify for reimbursement of federal and state disaster funds. FEMA has determined that the current California Statewide Medical Mutual Aide Agreement is not sufficient to fulfill this obligation. Recent experience associated with Medical Health Mutual Aid response to the Napa Earthquake, Valley Fire and San Bernardino Incident have demonstrated that the lack of a regional mutual aid agreement creates barriers for both qualifying for and receiving timely reimbursement associated with state and federal emergency and disaster declarations.
The California Mutual Aid Region II Intra-Region Cooperative Agreement (see attachment) is based on the Southern California model agreement and has been vetted over the last year with Region II Health Officers, Public Health and EMS Administrators. The presence of an adopted regional agreement positions all jurisdictions and who are involved in sending and receiving medical mutual aid to qualify for state and federal emergency funds and optimal reimbursement.
The regional cooperative agreement must be entered into by all parties without edits or changes to be recognized by State and Federal Agencies responsible for disaster and emergency fund reimbursement. Region II jurisdictions eligible to participate in this regional agreement include: Alameda, City of Berkeley, Contra Costa, Del Norte, Humboldt, Lake, Marin, Mendocino, Monterey, Napa, San Benito, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Solano and Sonoma.
The County will not qualify for federal funds and will experience long delays in state reimbursement associated with emergency medical services and medical health mutual aid between Region II operational areas. Regional mutual aid agreements are required for timely state and federal mutual aid reimbursement. In an absence of participation in the regional agreement the County would have to rely on general funds to support mutual aid reimbursement associated with requests for medical mutual aid that would otherwise be eligible for federal disaster funds under FEMA.