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Responding to a Tragedy: First-of-its-kind Financial System
An innovative response to help Maui’s residents in the face of unimaginable tragedy—providing a community with foundational disaster response and resilience solutions; resulting in desperately needed emergency shelter, relief and support.
Tragedy and Need
In 2023, the entire world watched in horror as one of the nation’s deadliest ever wildfires decimated an entire town before our disbelieving eyes. The Lahaina Fire quickly spread through an entire town and community, destroying everything in its wake, and tragically killing approximately one hundred people in the process—a disaster that was exacerbated by the community’s lack of readiness to respond to a disaster of this magnitude.
In the chaotic aftermath, a government response was desperately needed to support residents who had lost their homes, stranded without basic needs such as food and water. Federal and state agencies swiftly responded via the provision of meals and funds to support the utilization of hotels as temporary housing. This, however, created its own set of problems, as the speed of government intervention led to an unsustainably high volume of invoices that needed immediate processing— reviewing individual invoices to ensure prompt and accurate payment of the services rendered. In other words, a custom-built, prompt and reliable processing system was urgently needed, to guarantee shelter for those who were left homeless.
Moreover, the financial burden facing the state hadn’t been accurately sized given that the tragedy was the first of its kind. The state was estimating that the tragedy would require $2B in funding for the first year. However, there were no systems or technologies to accurately validate this amount. This challenge was further exacerbated by the reality that Maui was experiencing a housing problem well before the tragic fire due to it being an island, meaning that people can’t simply drive to the next county to look for alternative accommodation.
Spire’s Innovative Frontline Response
Hi-EMA engaged Spire to deploy a system along with the necessary resources required to process the mounting number of invoices, to accurately quantify the financial resources needed to ensure that residents received the services they desperately needed.
Spire flew a small, agile team to the island, and was able to quickly untangle all the finances needed to accurately estimate the financial burden facing the State of Hawai‘i.
Spire’s unique methodology, originally developed through its efforts to assist in tackling Hawai‘i’s COVID surge challenges, enabled the team to work expeditiously with both federal and state agencies to implement a robust processing structure and system. As a result, Spire was able to immediately start vetting and processing invoices for payment.
On the surface, this may seem like a standard procedure. However, this undertaking transpired to be anything but standard, given the reality that there wasn’t a financial framework or system in place, to address an emergency of this magnitude. Moreover, the agencies’ priorities were understandably in assisting those impacted by the fire. In other words, the necessary systems weren’t in place to accurately quantify what each resident needed in terms of financial support.
Spire’s processing system also integrated the services of a strategic, technology partner, to further augment process productivity.
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$ 500 M
Budget surplus
(shifted from deficit to surplus) -
10000 +
Invoices processed immediately
-
100 %
Scalable for other wildfire recoveries
A Sustainable Financial Foundation for the Future
Spire’s ability to solve complex problems resulted in the rapid formation of a highly effective process that identified misuse and errors to ensure appropriate payment. And significantly, the team was able to accurately determine that the state’s financial burden was far higher than had previously been estimated. The amount needed was estimated at more than double the original figure, to the tune of billions of dollars.
This effort meant that the State of Hawai‘i was able to collectively secure the necessary funds needed to address not only this tragedy, but also lock down the necessary monies to service other areas of the state—which had been heading into negative budget territory. By providing the state with an accurate basis for its funds request, this in turn prevented any potential shortfalls in other areas of the state’s responsibility of service. Today, the state is operating with a budget surplus.
Crucially, this meant that all residents across the State of Hawai‘i received and continue to receive the help they need.
Looking into the future, this first-of-its-kind payment and invoice methodology for wildfire relief, is quickly repeatable and scalable to support other community wildfire recoveries and relief efforts.
