Counties protest $3.5 billion 'first responders' shortfall

The National Association of Counties criticized Congress Wednesday for failing to take action on the $3.5 billion recommended by the Bush administration for "our army at home" against future terrorists attacks.

"It has been 16 months and not one nickel of the $3.5 billion promised first responders has been appropriated by Congress," NACo president Ken Mayfield told a news conference. "There seems to be an understanding that the threat of future attacks is real but help from Congress to combat those attacks is just a fantasy."

The money is tied up in the $390 billion fiscal 2003 omnibus spending bill being debated in the Senate. Funding for local police, firefighters and other so-called first responders has already been cut in the draft of the spending bill that the Senate is considering, and attempts to restore it have been unsuccessful.

Counties need the full amount to pay for the additional training, equipment and personnel they have already deployed in the campaign against terrorism, Mayfield said. Many counties have struggling economies and dwindling budgets that make it difficult to pay for existing services, let alone new programs for homeland security, he said.

Officials attending NACo's Homeland Security Task Force meeting joined Mayfield in making his plea for funding. Randy Johnson of Hennepin County, Minn., which includes the Minneapolis suburbs, said that his county has already spent $5.5 million on homeland security, and that does not include the cost of redeploying personnel. The money has come mostly from local property taxes, with very little coming from the federal government. "We need the federal money," Johnson said. "We're the first responders. We're the army at home."

Jane Halliburton, a supervisor in rural Story County, Iowa-home of the National Animal Disease Center-said that rural counties, too, are first responders."

They must also equip and train their police and fire departments to respond to potential terrorist attacks, she said, a task often complicated by the fact that small counties depend on volunteers. While some might dismiss rural areas as terrorist targets, Halliburton said that crops and water could be targeted and that bioterrorism threats such as anthrax can happen anywhere.