Who Wants to Pay More? Exploring Citizen Willingness to Pay for Supporting Local Emergency Management

Abstract

Local emergency managers play a significant role in mitigating, preparing for, responding to, and recovering from disasters. However, the fiscal stress that local governments often face limits their ability to hire and retain emergency managers within their jurisdiction. In this article, we aim to investigate public demand and support for hiring full-time, paid local emergency managers, a critical step to enhancing local emergency management capacity. We utilize the Contingent Valuation Method (CVM) to examine the average amount of additional local taxes that citizens are willing to pay in order to have a full-time, paid emergency management professional in their local government. Our analysis indicates that the average willingness to pay (WTP) for hiring a full-time, paid emergency manager ranges from $24 to $28 per household in extra local tax dollars. The estimated cost-benefit ratio suggests that hiring full-time paid emergency managers could be a cost-effective option for enhancing local emergency management capacity. Furthermore, our findings show that public willingness to pay for this policy change is correlated with social trust, political beliefs, and income level.