State Watch Office Duty Officer - 31001096

Requisition No: 871454 

Agency: Division of Emergency Management

Working Title: State Watch Office Duty Officer - 31001096

 Pay Plan: CS Exempt (EOG)

Position Number: 31001096 

Salary:  $51,339.12 

Posting Closing Date: 03/18/2026 

Total Compensation Estimator Tool

State Watch Office Duty Officer

Bureau of Response

Florida Division of Emergency Management

This position is located in Tallahassee, FL

 

The Florida Division of Emergency Management (FDEM) plans for and responds to both natural and man-made disasters. These range from floods and hurricanes to incidents involving hazardous materials or nuclear power. FDEM is the liaison between federal, state, and local agencies. FDEM prepares and implements a statewide Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan, routinely conducts extensive exercises to test state and county emergency response capabilities, provides technical assistance to local governments as they prepare emergency plans and procedures, as well as conducts emergency operations trainings for state and local government agencies.

 

FDEM serves as the lead agency for the State Emergency Response Team (SERT), whose primary goal is the coordination of the state’s efforts during disaster response and recovery. This coordination is conducted within the State Emergency Operations Center (SEOC) in Tallahassee. Additionally, FDEM manages the State Watch Office; the 24-hour a day operation tasked with providing situational awareness to stakeholders statewide. After a disaster, FDEM conducts damage assessment surveys and advises the Governor of the State of Florida on whether to declare an emergency and seek federal relief funds. It is against this backdrop that FDEM strives to demonstrate its mission of, “Coordinate, collaborate, and communicate with our community stakeholders for a resilient Florida”, along with our vision of “Leading the Profession in building prepared and resilient communities”.

 

Position Overview and Responsibilities:

 

This position serves as the State Duty Officer in the State Watch Office (SWO). This position requires rotating working hours and after-hours on-call responsibilities that are split with one other Duty Officer in a seven-day period, including nights and weekends.  During on-call periods, the employee must carry an FDEM issued cell phone and be capable of immediately responding to the State Emergency Operations Center (SEOC) within 45 minutes to address emergency situations occurring around the state. Duties include, but are not limited to:

 

• Maintain all-hazards situational awareness of events and/or incidents that impact or threaten the State of Florida.
• Ensure that proper notifications are made to senior staff, state and local response, and recovery organizations.
• Assess the need for additional response actions by SERT organizations to incidents that occur in the State of Florida.
• Conduct initial and periodic refresher training for all SWO Operations Officers, documents training progress, and make recommendations for improvements to the training process.
• Coordinate shift scheduling requests from SWO Operations Officers.
• Consult with State Watch Officers on training, performance, and professional development.
• Recommend and assist in the establishment of policies and procedures related to the SWO, SEOC, and FDEM programs.
• Monitor SEOC activities to determine compliance with statewide emergency management operation goals, investigate, assess, analyze, and make recommendations to resolve issues and problems pertaining to the SEOC operational priorities involving preparedness and response issues.
• Participate in partial and full SEOC activation and perform all duties as assigned by the SERT Chief.
• Attend conferences, training, meetings, etc. as required.
• Perform travel and other related work as required.

 

In response to emergency events, FDEM employees may be required to work irregular hours, to work more than 8 hours per day, to work extended periods (including weekends and holidays), to work at locations other than their official headquarters, and to perform duties in addition to those outlined in the employee’s position description. Employees must be able to deploy to emergency sites with limited adva