States Say They Are “Allocating,” Not “Spending,” Antiterrorism Funds on Time

By Joe Fiorill
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — State homeland security chiefs on Friday disputed charges that a state-level logjam is preventing federal funds for terrorism and WMD response from reaching local-level first responders (see GSN, Feb. 12).

“The money is not stuck anywhere. ... Every state has met every deadline given to us by the [federal] Department of Homeland Security,” Indiana Counterterrorism and Security Council Director Clifford Ong told reporters at a briefing organized by the National Governors Association.

The officials suggested the dispute stems at least in part from differences of terminology. States are required to “pass through” 80 percent of funds from the federal Homeland Security Department’s largest first-responder grant program within 45 days of receiving the grants, but the state officials said the provision requires them to “allocate,” not necessarily to “spend,” the money. Virginia Homeland Security Director George Foresman said he frequently fields calls from local officials who are unaware he has allocated — that is, designated, but not provided — funds to their jurisdictions.

The Office for Domestic Preparedness, which administers the grants, would see its funding cut by 18.5 percent under the Bush administration’s proposed fiscal 2005 budget, despite predictions last year by U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge that the office’s budget would grow considerably (see GSN, Feb. 4).

In discussing the cut, federal officials said billions of allocated federal dollars have not reached local jurisdictions. The U.S. Conference of Mayors said in a report last month that states have failed to provide most U.S. cities with funds from the largest Office for Domestic Preparedness grant program.

Ridge said Feb. 12 that a “logjam” is resulting from the lack of a “single distribution mechanism between states and the local communities,” but the state officials at Friday’s briefing largely rejected the claim. Foresman said that “momentum is only beginning to build” in programs run by Ridge’s department, which is barely a year old.

In a subsequent interview with Global Security Newswire, Foresman said states are meeting federal deadlines, but he questioned the usefulness of the deadlines. “Congress should not have to dictate how long it takes to get the money out,” he said.

In responding to charges of a logjam, the state officials said the funding process has been widely misunderstood by local officials. “One place where the states have not done what we should have done is education,” said Foresman.

The officials stressed that federal money is distributed to reimburse local jurisdictions’ costs, not in advance; that broad threat assessments and response planning should be the basis for spending; and that it is still early in the current two-year grant-giving period. “When you’re at the early stage of a two-year program,” said Foresman, “you’re not going to have expended all of the dollars.”

Added Missouri Homeland Security Director Tim Daniel: “It’s a two-year program, and we are at the early stages of a 10-year plan. Just because there is $15 billion [provided in the past three years by the federal office] doesn’t mean that there has been $15 billion spent; it means there is $15 billion allocated.”

The state officials acknowledged that more spending is needed to properly equip the country’s local first responders, but said Office for Domestic Preparedness funds can never completely cover the needs of local agencies. “Clearly, there is a gap, but the question at the end of the day is, ‘What do we need to get, versus what do we want to get?’” Foresman said.

The officials added that the funds must be spent deliberately, based on an overall strategy. A federally produced national threat assessment that would underlie such targeted spending “is not something that we’re probably going to get done any time in the near term,” Foresman said.

His projection contradicted Feb. 12 testimony by Ridge, who told the House Select Committee on Homeland Security that the assessment would be ready within three months. States submitted statewide threat assessments and response plans to Washington at the end of last month (see GSN, Feb. 13).

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