2020 SIIF Fellow Stories: Amelia Hetherington and City of Austin

By Amelia Hetherington

Editors note: This blog shares the experience of one of our 2020 SIIF Fellows in their impact internship. The Social Impact Internship Fund (SIIF) at McCombs supports MBAs who secure summer internships focused on social or environmental impact with organizations that otherwise would not be able to afford MBA salaries. The SIIF was established in 2016 through the joint efforts of Graduate Business Council and Net Impact. This award is entirely student-run and is made possible by donations from the McCombs community — students, faculty, staff, and alumni. To donate, click here.

This summer I joined the City of Austin as a Cost Emergency Specialist assigned to their emergency COVID-19 response. I was assigned to the Alternate Care Site being stood up at the Austin Convention Center, and I contributed to the preliminary policy and operational processes as Austin experienced a transmission spike this July (1) and the ACS prepared to receive patients in August. Since the number of hospitalizations have once again leveled off, I have been able to devote more time to cost tracking for the dual goals of federal reimbursement and future interlocal (City of Austin and Travis County) budgeting for sustained “warm state” operations. (That is, given the uncertainty surrounding COVID-19, local leadership wants to continue to keep the ACS near-ready, rather than demobilize operations.) Though I didn’t have previous experience in emergency management, it felt timely to join the City’s efforts to raise an effective multipronged public health response in a matter of months.

Through my role, I learned about City financial processes so that I could track the substantial expenditures that go into setting up a field hospital. I bring pieces of information together from 6 or more cost entry points to create a cogent snapshot of monthly expenses. Together with the information from my peers at the Protective Lodges, Testing Sites and Isolation Facilities, the expenditures come together to give City leadership a detailed understanding of how money is being spent, quickly. This allows the Finance Section to guide decisions of how many facilities can and should be maintained, especially given the uncertainty around COVID-19. SIIF gave me the boost I needed to begin work this summer, and to continue working at least through the Fall ahead of the federal reimbursement deadline. I’m grateful for the opportunity to bring together my policy and business backgrounds, and to be given exposure to high-level decision making that guides our local public health response!