GAO: More information going into urban security grant decisions
Applicants must provide more details on the reason for their requests; more intelligence reports are being considered.
The Homeland Security Department is requiring applicants for urban area security grants to provide more detailed justifications for their requests, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office.
With the change, future allocations will depend more on applicants' ability to prove a threat and demonstrate the need for further security measures, the report stated.
The study (GAO-07-381R) -- a supplement following up on a Nov. 17, 2006, briefing -- comes after lawmakers expressed concerns over cuts in grants for fiscal 2006. The handling that year raised "questions and concerns" about the "validity, relevance, reliability [and] timeliness" of risk factors incorporated into grant decisions, the lawmakers said in seeking the review.
GAO detailed how for fiscal 2007, DHS officials for the first time demanded that urban areas requesting more funding "submit investment justifications as part of their grant application" to "assess the anticipated effectiveness of the various risk mitigation investments."
The funding decisions were then made based on each locality's "risk score," which included evaluations of intelligence reports and sought to take in a wider range of investigations, GAO told lawmakers.
This included DHS incorporating considerations of possible attacks on aqueducts, arenas, casinos, offshore petroleum import terminals, pharmaceutical plants, postal shipping hubs, water treatment facilities and underwater commuter tunnels. The GAO report said considerations had not been given to these possible targets for fiscal 2006 evaluations.
GAO found that reviews of intelligence were based not only on current information, but on information stretching back to Sept. 11, 2001.
DHS did not release the details of specific funding requests, citing security concerns.
Last month, the department announced grants for fiscal 2007 that represented an increase over fiscal 2006 in both the level of money available and the number of localities eligible.