The Sum Sufficient Executive Order (S2EO) was developed as a result of Budget Bill – HB30 (Chapter 1289) (G) which requires VDEM to:

(1) review disasters over the previous six years for which sum sufficient funding was authorized under Item 55 of this act, and categorize disasters into general types, such as tornadoes, hurricanes of various categories, flooding, etc;

(2) for local financial assistance authorized under § 44-146.28 of the Code of Virginia, the report shall also detail the state and local share of spending on those events; and

(3) propose model executive orders to authorize funding from the sum sufficient authority provided in Item 55 of this act for each respective type of disaster event, based on reasonable state share, in consideration of the data collected pursuant to this paragraph.

Costs and disaster data associated with Governor’s Executive Orders for Emergency Declarations from March 2015 – June 2020 were provided from VDEM’s grants management system, vdem.emgrants.com. These disasters were broken down into disaster types to include flooding, tropical storms, civil unrest, winter storms, and windstorms. The disasters were further categorized into localized or widespread events, as no two disaster events have the same impact. It should be noted that a storm of hurricane strength when it passed over Virginia, has not occurred since 1933.

For these disasters identified, state and local costs were included. For disasters that ended up being declared major disasters by the President, the state share of sum sufficient required under § 44-146.28 of the Code of Virginia was included. For costs to support the Virginia Emergency Operations Center and the Department of Military Affairs, the full costs were included regardless of federal assistance to represent the requirement of the state to expend these costs first and then seek reimbursement. This report does not include sum-sufficient amounts associated with COVID-19, as this is an ongoing disaster and numbers are not finalized.

The Sum Sufficient Executive Order Model (S2EOM) was developed Old Dominion University’s Virginia Modeling, Analysis, and Simulation Center to assess the Commonwealth of Virginia’s historical disaster data from March 2015 – June 2020. S2EOM provides an analytic budget rationale for future disaster executive orders (EO). It should be noted that six years is a limited sample size for disaster costs, and is not a representation of what future disaster costs may be. For example, during this period, Virginia has not experienced a Category 1 Hurricane or higher. The estimates for future events are based on historical disaster data from 2015-2020. S2EOM is comprised of a compounding inflation calculator, disaster database, model views, and visuals. Each disaster is tied to a Governor’s Executive Order for a Declaration of Emergency.