CAFACTS
Community Association Industry Facts & News
Prepared by Clifford J. Treese, CIRMS®
President, Association Consulting, Inc.
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SPECIAL FOCUS
► U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO.gov)
Treese Notes: The GAO produces numerous Reports that are free and usually contain excellent graphics. The sentence in bold below is mine. See the Top Ten Reports for April 2025.
About – Reports & Testimonies: GAO, often called the "congressional watchdog,” is an independent, non-partisan agency that works for Congress. GAO examines how taxpayer dollars are spent and provides Congress and federal agencies with objective, non-partisan, fact-based information to help the government save money and work more efficiently.
For example, we identified about $67.5 billion in financial benefits for the federal government in fiscal year 2024—a return of approximately $76 for every dollar invested. GAO’s average return on investment for the past 6 years is $123 to $1. We also identified 1,232 other benefits that led to program and operational improvements across the government. To learn more, read our press release about our fiscal year 2024 performance.
What the GAO Does: GAO provides Congress, the heads of executive agencies, and the public with timely, fact-based, non-partisan information that can be used to improve government and save taxpayers billions of dollars. Our work is done at the request of congressional committees or subcommittees or is statutorily required by public laws or committee reports, per our Congressional Protocols.
Standards Setting Guides: See the five Audit Guides as well as two Digital Assessment Guides.
Most Recent Reports: GAO’s reports and testimonies give Congress, federal agencies, and the public timely, fact-based, non-partisan information that can improve government operations and save taxpayers billions of dollars.
[Bold below is mine] The GAO has issued thousands of reports throughout its history, with a focus on recommendations for action. In the 26-year period from 1983 to 2014 alone, they made over 40,000 recommendations, each based on detailed, evidence-based reports. These recommendations cover a wide range of government issues, from information technology to social programs. For example, in 2022, Congress and executive branch agencies fully addressed 724 of the 1,299 actions identified by the GAO, leading to significant financial benefits.
1 - 20 of 630 Reports posted in the last 12 months. Released on May 16, 2025.
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SOCIETY, FINANCE & HOUSING
► After the Wildfire Guide for Arizona [52 pp.]
What is in the guide?
Immediate Safety: Tips on what to do before returning home and additional safety resources.
Assistance for Individuals and Families: Lists resources for emergency shelter, food, and other necessities, mental & emotional support, helping children cope with disaster, pets and livestock, financial tips, legal assistance, and more.
Assistance for Communities: Designed for community leaders, this includes information on how to begin mobilizing your community, tips for working with volunteers and other groups/agencies, and community financial support.
Post-Fire Flooding: Things to think about if your property is damaged in a flood, tips for making insurance claims, and more. Forest, Grassland, and Desert Recovery: Key steps for ecological recovery in different ecosystem types found in Arizona.
Forest, Grassland, and Desert Recovery: Key steps for ecological recovery in different ecosystem types found in Arizona.
To view an interactive map of tort costs per household on the U.S. Chamber website, click here.
Treese Notes: This link is about the Chamber’s activities in many jurisdictions concerning tort reform. ILR is the “Institute for Legal Reform.” See the History of Tort Reform.
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RISK MANAGEMENT & INSURANCE
This report examines how insurance can support the protection and restoration of marine ecosystems such as coral reefs and mangroves, especially in coastal areas vulnerable to natural hazards. It focuses on the Caribbean, where ecosystems are key to reducing disaster risks and supporting tourism.
Findings suggest that healthy ecosystems like coral reefs and mangroves play a major role in reducing damage from hurricanes and storm surges. When these systems are degraded, their ability to protect coastlines drops sharply. Insurance—especially parametric types—can offer rapid funding for restoration. Case studies in Mexico, Belize, and Hawaii show how such insurance can safeguard nature, sustain tourism, and strengthen financial resilience.
Treese Notes: See the actual report, Safeguarding Marine Ecosystems and Society [60 pp.]
For example, Munich Re and The Nature Conservancy recently designed a method to combine community based insurance along the Mississippi River with ecosystem maintenance activities that improve flood prevention (Munich Re and The Nature Conservancy 2021). Initiatives like this one, or like the Quintana Roo Reef Insurance, could be explored for the Caribbean and could leverage regional entities such as CCRIF SPC and the Caribbean Biodiversity Fund.
► States Underuse Court Date Reminders
Research shows that State courts bear the immense responsibility of handling about 66 million cases a year, many of which require people facing civil or criminal matters to go to court for at least one hearing, and often several, to resolve their cases.1 Although most people show up for court,2 no-shows in even a small percentage of cases add up to millions of missed hearings that slow court operations and inconvenience court personnel, witnesses, and victims. In criminal and traffic cases especially, missed court hearings not only strain court efficiency but also can have cascading consequences: A missed hearing can result in an arrest warrant, driver’s license suspension, fine, and even jail time for the person charged in the case.3
But missed court hearings don’t have to be such a drain on justice system resources.4 Just like the reminders that people get from a dentist’s office or a hair salon, a court date reminder that notifies a person of an upcoming appointment helps reduce the no-shows that happen simply because the person forgot…Reminders can help get people to court—and reduce the cost of missed hearings. . .
Treese Notes: Automated Appointment Reminder Market Grows as Businesses Prioritize Efficiency and Customer Engagement
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SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY & THE ENVIRONMENT
Abstract
The frequency and extent of wildfire emergencies have increased globally during the past few decades. Consequently, a large amount of resources are regularly spent on these events in order to protect people, their homes, and the environment. Underpinned by software and hardware technology advancements, particularly concerning sensors, navigation, and artificial intelligence, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have proven valuable in supporting different aspects of a wildfire emergency response.
However, their use is ad-hoc and task-specific within already established systems rather than forming an integral part of their design. Furthermore, while UAV swarms are aimed at exploiting the power of self-organisation and collective intelligence to collaboratively solve tasks that would be impossible to solve otherwise, they add complexity to the design. Additionally, regulations are still remarkably restrictive in terms of operations beyond visual line of sight, autonomy, and self-organization.
This paper identifies the tasks for which the use of UAV swarms is deemed beneficial for a wildfire emergency response system, and regulations that hinder their acceptance, adoption, and integration. A systems engineering approach is then adopted to propose a conceptual design of a human-centred wildfire emergency response system empowered by UAV swarms—including software, hardware, human components, their interactions, and their interfaces.
Such a system offers real-time high-resolution monitoring and situational awareness of the fire front, burned area, and evacuation process; support for propagation forecasts and decision-making; and participation in fire suppression activities. Therefore, it protects wildlife, the lives of wildfire responders, and those of residents in the affected areas and beyond.
Treese Notes: More research on fire.
► Environmental Peacebuilding: The Year in Review and the Year Ahead
As 2025 marches into its third month, the governance challenges that accompany rising demand for natural resources are not only on the front burner—they are proliferating—and becoming entangled with the drivers of conflict and cooperation.
The heated competition for resources has bubbled up in a proposed billion-dollar deal for Ukrainian minerals now making global headlines. The view that critical minerals like lithium, manganese, and others could become bargaining chips in potential peace talks demonstrates how central they’ve become to global competition—and to the economic and political future of countries around the world.
The trendlines for the accelerating activity were clear as experts at the Environmental Peacebuilding Association’s The Year in Review and the Year Ahead roundtable in January surveyed how the long-standing nature of governance issues around natural resources are surfacing in today’s challenges.
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WORLD
Government and businesses urged to invest in beaver dams, bogs and ponds
A new report commissioned by RSA Insurance, an Intact company, and The Wildlife Trusts shows that every £1 invested in natural flood management (NFM) is expected to deliver £10 of benefits over 30 years. Nature is one of the best defenses against flooding in a changing climate, but the partners behind the report believe that more investment, data and support is needed to increase its long-term positive effects.
Natural flood management means investing in beaver wetlands, creating ponds, restoring bogs, rewilding rivers and de-paving so that these areas can soak up water and hold it back in times of high rainfall*. Evidence collated by the Environment Agency shows that natural flood management is effective at reducing the overall damage from flood risk; the new report has gone further to focus on wider benefits including better habitats for wildlife, carbon storage, and improvements to health and wellbeing.
Alongside the devastating impacts that flooding can have on people, it is the UK’s most expensive natural hazard, costing approximately £2.2 billion annually. This is projected to rise by a range of 19-49% by the 2050s according to the UK’s latest Climate Change Risk Assessment. The new research looked at ten natural flood management schemes created by individual Wildlife Trusts. Collectively, they had an average total cost-benefit ratio of 4:1 over ten years rising to 10:1 over 30 years.
► Aon Q1 Global Catastrophe Recap April 2025 [20 pp.]
Executive Summary: The economic losses of the first quarter of 2025 (Q1) reached at least $83 billion, which is well above the 21st-century Q1 average of $61 billion, and also higher than the losses during the same period last year ($54 billion). The first-quarter losses were driven by California wildfires (Palisades & Eaton Fires), as well as by several other billion-dollar events, including multiple severe convective storm (SCS) outbreaks across the United States in February and March, and the deadly earthquakes in Myanmar and China. Insured losses were expected to reach at least $53 billion, which is significantly higher than the 21st century Q1 average of $17 billion, marking the second-highest total on record after Q1 2011.
These high losses resulted primarily from California wildfires, which contributed approximately $37.5 billion, or 71 percent of the total insured losses. The insurance protection gap was provisionally estimated at 36 percent, the lowest Q1 value since 1990 (47 percent) and by far the lowest level on record for Q1. This was mainly due to the dominant contribution of insured losses in the United States, where insurance penetration stands relatively high.
More than 6,000 people died due to natural disasters during the first quarter of 2025, which is well above a number of fatalities during the same period last year (1,800). The total Q1 death toll is expected to evolve further since the vast majority (88 percent) of the deaths is related to the recent earthquake in Myanmar. All other events during Q1 resulted in about 700 fatalities in total, which would rank among one of the lowest human Q1 losses on record.
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BOOK REVIEW / ESSAY
► Seven Crashes: The Economic Crises That Shaped Globalization
Harold James. New Haven: Yale University Press,2023. viii+367 pp. $32.50 (hardcover), ISBN: 978-0300263398
Reviewed for EH.Net by Mary Tone Rodgers, State University of New York at Oswego.
Harold James, Professor of History and International Affairs at Princeton University, is well known in economic history circles for his work on patterns in globalization with books such as The Creation and Destruction of Value: The Globalization Cycle (2009) and The End of Globalization: Lessons from the Great Depression (2001) and for his expertise on the German experience with German Slump: Politics and Economics, 1924–1936 (1986) and German Identity, 1770–1990 (1989). James extends his earlier studies in his latest book, Seven Crashes: The Crises That Shaped Globalization, by identifying trigger points for shifts in the patterns in globalization.
Economic History Association members will find two novel features in Seven Crashes compared with conventional work from economic historians about globalization. Firstly, while we are well acquainted with reading about how economic and financial crises have depended on global connectedness to spread, we may be surprised to read that James turns the idea around, writing that global connectedness itself depends on the form that economic crises take. Secondly, while we are well acquainted with the history of economic thought, we may be surprised at how James’s storytelling prowess turns economists into vivid characters, thus more firmly etching their theoretical contributions into our memories.
James’s central argument in Seven Crashes is that new institutions, whether they be market innovations or state capacities, generally arise out of responses to a particular kind of disruption: supply crises associated with a crash (p. 2).
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CRITICAL THINKING
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