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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 155 / Monday, August 16, 2021 / Rules and Regulations process is extremely flexible, and an applicant can use whatever resources it thinks would be most appropriate for its case. For example, in one case, the applicant hired several non-local attorneys for representation. In another case, the arbitration was conducted via written reports only, and no hearing was conducted.
Costs to the CBCA are not discussed in this analysis. CBCA promulgated their own regulations regarding their procedures for FEMA arbitration cases.
Under DRRA, CBCA will be responsible for covering the costs of conducting arbitration hearings. All other parties including the applicant, the recipient, and FEMA would be responsible for covering their own expenses. The final rule does not mandate any costs for the applicant or recipient. The arbitration process would be entirely voluntary on the part of the applicant. Applicants would choose to request arbitration if they determine that the cost of arbitration is justified by the potential benefits.
This analysis estimates a range of potential costs based on the applicants or recipients use of attorneys for representation. The final rule would not require attorneys to represent any party for arbitration. However, FEMA would be represented by attorneys at any arbitration hearing.
The costs to the applicant, recipient, and FEMA would be due to travel and opportunity cost of time and contract costs for legal counsel and experts. To estimate the opportunity cost of time, FEMA assumed that each case would take each party 46.5 hours rounded to 47 hours to prepare for the hearing, attend the hearing, and for post hearing work.20 Hearings have historically lasted two working days, or 16 hours.21
Additional time would be required for travel as is discussed later in this analysis. FEMA also assumes that each party would make use of expert witnesses in support of their case.
Additionally, FEMA generally pays for a court reporter.
Regulations at 44 CFR 206.209 have a 30-day time limit for submitting arbitration requests; whereas, this final rule has a 60 calendar-day time limit for arbitrations. Since the 60 calendar-day appeals deadline is current FEMA
policy there will be no additional costs for the regulatory text changes at 206.206b1iiA and b2iiA
since it has already been accounted for.
20 Based on information provided by FEMA Office of Chief Counsel Disaster Disputes Branch.
21 Based on information provided by FEMA Office of Chief Counsel Disaster Disputes Branch.

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Opportunity Cost of Time and Wages A typical arbitration request requires the work of several people, including lawyers to represent the applicants, a court reporter to take a transcript of the hearing, and State, local, Tribal, or PNP
managers who are responsible for compiling and submitting the original PA request. Applicants will also typically supply expert witnesses when making their case to the CBCA panel.
FEMA used wage rates for General and Operations Managers to represent State, Tribal, local, and PNP managers. Many PA projects involve repair or replacement of buildings and infrastructure, so FEMA assumes that Engineers would be the most likely occupation used as expert witnesses.
FEMA used hourly wage rates from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment Statistics for the following occupations: $69.86 for Lawyers SOC 231011, $31.25 for Court Reporters and Simultaneous Captioners SOC 232093, $48.45 for Engineers SOC 172000, and $59.15
for General and Operations Managers SOC 111021.22 To account for the benefits paid by employers, FEMA used a wage multiplier of 1.46,23 resulting in fully-loaded hourly wages of $102.00 for Lawyers, $45.63 for Court Reporters and Simultaneous Captioners, $70.74 for Engineers, and $86.36 for General and Operations Managers.
FEMA used the 2019 hourly wage tables for the Washington-BaltimoreArlington, DC-MD-VA-WV-PA 24
locality rate for FEMA employees participating in arbitration cases. Based on current FEMA practice, FEMA
assumes that GS13 employees would perform both legal and other services for an arbitration case and the work would be reviewed by a manager at the GS15
level. The hourly GS13 Step 5 salary was $53.85, and the hourly GS15 step 5 salary was $74.86. In order to account 22 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. National Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates United States. May 2019. Accessed August 18, 2020. https www.bls.gov/oes/2019/may/oes_
nat.htm.
23 Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, Table 1. Employer costs per hour worked for employee compensation and costs as a percent of total compensation: Civilian workers, by major occupational and industry group, March 2019. Available at http www.bls.gov/
news.release/archives/ecec_06182020.pdf.
Accessed August 18, 2020. The wage multiplier is calculated by dividing total compensation for all workers of $37.73 by wages and salaries for all workers of $25.91 per hour yielding a benefits multiplier of approximately 1.46.
24 U.S. Office of Personnel Management. 2019
General Schedule GS Locality Pay Tables. August 19, 2020. https www.opm.gov/policy-dataoversight/pay-leave/salaries-wages/salary-tables/
pdf/2019/DCB_h.pdf.

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for the benefits paid by employers, FEMA used a 1.46 multiplier to calculate loaded wage rates of $78.62 for a GS13 Federal employee and $109.30
for a GS15 Federal employee.
Travel Arbitration cases are heard by a panel of judges of the CBCA, which is based in Washington, DC. The arbitration process is very customizable, so applicants can choose to have the hearings locally, where a CBCA judge would travel to their location, and FEMA would also send its representatives. Alternatively, cases could be heard at the CBCA, and the applicant would travel to Washington, DC, along with any lawyers and expert witnesses. Finally, the applicant could choose to have the CBCA review documents, and nobody would be required to travel. Because PA
applicants are located throughout the U.S. and can be travelling from any location within the U.S., FEMA used average nationwide travel costs to estimate the travel costs for this rule.
The U.S. General Service Administration GSA provides guidance on travel policy, hotel rates, and meals and incidentals for Federal employees. FEMA used GSA data on hotel prices and per diem rates to estimate travel expense costs of attending a hearing in person.25 Because data on travel expenses for non-Federal employees is not available, FEMA used the Federal lodging and per diem rates for applicants traveling to Washington, DC to attend hearings. According to GSA, in 2019, the average price of a hotel room in Washington, DC was $216
per night 26 and outside of the Washington, DC metro area was $94 per night.27 The per diem rate for meals and incidentals on the first and last travel days 28 is $57 and $76 for other travel 25 U.S. General Services Administration. FY
2019 Per Diem Rates for District of Columbia.
Accessed on August 19, 2020. Standard CONUS
rate used for lodging and MI&E. https
www.gsa.gov/travel/plan-book/per-diem-rates/perdiem-rates-lookup/?action=perdiems_
report&state=DC&fiscal_year=2019&zip=&city=. Per diem rates are calendar year instead of fiscal year.
26 FEMA took the average of the 12 month per diem lodging rates provided by GSA for Washington, DC from October 2018 to September 2019, available at https www.gsa.gov/travel/planbook/per-diem-rates/per-diem-rates-lookup/
?action=perdiems_report&state=DC&fiscal_
year=2019&zip=&city=.
27 U.S. General Service Administration. FY 2019
Per Diem RatesEffective October 1, 2018.
Accessed on May 24, 2021. Standard CONUS rate used for lodging and MI&E. https www.gsa.gov/
cdnstatic/FY2019_PerDiemRatesMasterFile_0.xls.
Per diem rates are calendar year instead of fiscal year.
28 U.S. General Services Administration. M&IE
Breakdown. Accessed on May 24, 2021. https

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