Mayors want more direct homeland security funding

The federal government should bypass state bureaucracies and provide more money directly to local cities so they can pay for homeland security needs, the chairman of the U.S. Conference of Mayors' Homeland Security Task Force said Wednesday.

While the federal government has doled out billions of dollars for military activities abroad, it has left an "unfunded local mandate" for U.S. cities that are directly responsible for the defense of its residents and infrastructure, said Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley during a conference organized by the Homeland Security Leadership Council.

"We would never think of sending the men and women of our armed forces into Afghanistan or Iraq with radios that can't talk to each other," O'Malley said. "We would spare no expense. We would defer any tax cut to make sure that our soldiers abroad had the best weapons they could get, the best technology we could supply them with and the best protection for their lives that we could get them."

O'Malley decried proposed cuts to homeland security first responder programs in the Bush administration's fiscal year 2005 budget proposal sent to Congress earlier this month. The budget reduces funding for several grant programs, such as Citizen Corps, Fire Act Grants, state and local training initiatives, training exercises, and technical assistance. Overall, the amount of grant funding available to state and local governments in the proposed budget drops by $805 million from fiscal year 2004.

O'Malley said the budget cuts state block grant programs from $1.7 billion to $750 million and firefighter assistance grants from $750 million to $500 million. Law enforcement terrorist prevention grants will remain at $500 million.

According to O'Malley, the federal government has not indicated yet that it will reimburse local cities for costs incurred when the nation was elevated to code orange on the five-color threat advisory system last December.

In January, the U.S. Conference of Mayors issued its second national survey of 215 major cities showing that up to 90 percent of metropolitan areas had not received any funding from the largest federal programs for first responders.

Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge told Congress this week that up to $9 billion in grants awarded in previous years remains unspent, mainly because states have yet to distribute it to cities and counties.

State government emergency management agencies are good at responding after an attack, O'Malley said, but they are not the best at prevention, preparedness, and intelligence gathering and dissemination. "For the last couple of years since the attacks of Sept. 11, it's like one level of government is speaking Chinese while the other one is speaking French back to them," O'Malley said.

The Baltimore mayor acknowledged that some metropolitan areas are not yet organized enough to handle a large infusion of funds, but they need more than the federal government is now providing, especially in the form of direct block grants.

O'Malley supports a new plan DHS submitted to Congress last month that will overhaul the government's funding formula for state and local first responders. If the plan is approved, DHS will provide grants to geographic regions in the country based on population, infrastructure and threats. These grants would be dispersed through the Urban Area Security Initiative Grants program within the Office for Domestic Preparedness.

O'Malley said every metropolitan area should have a local intelligence network that enables agencies to gather and share information; a single way for local law enforcement officers to access federal criminal and terrorist watchlists; an integrated biosurvelliance system; a comprehensive assessment of vulnerabilities; upgraded emergency response plans; better training, equipment and inoculation for first responders; and interoperable and redundant communications systems.

"If the progress in any war is measured by forward movement along the front, I'm not sure that many of us in this room or in any city hall can tell you we're satisfied with the progress we are making locally here at home since Sept. 11," O'Malley said.