Homeland Security officials look for better funding formula

Homeland Security Department officials said Wednesday that they are searching for better funding formulas to provide federal money where it is most needed.

Officials said DHS has provided an unprecedented amount of funding for homeland security, including adequate money for state and local governments to cover costs incurred when the nation goes to a heightened state of alert. They acknowledged, however, that the federal formula for distributing homeland security funds should be revised.

State and local governments have complained that the department is not providing enough to equip and train first responders and protect critical infrastructure. On Tuesday, Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., ranking member of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, proposed adding $14 billion in homeland security funding to the Bush administration's fiscal year 2005 budget request, including $6.6 billion extra for first responders.

The administration's budget request boosts funding overall for DHS, but reduces funding for some grant programs for state and local governments.

"This does represent some new resources for homeland security, but the increase is less than meets the eye and far less than is truly needed," Lieberman said in a recent letter to the Senate Budget Committee.

Andy Mitchell, deputy director of DHS' Office of Domestic Preparedness, said Wednesday that funding levels are inadequate.

"We have requested less funds for the basic core grant programs to the states, but we've increased approximately the same amount for the Urban Area Security Initiative," Mitchell said during a conference sponsored by the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association.

"It depends on which side of the ledge you want to look at and which position you want to take," he added. "We're comfortable with the fact that we've asked for a more than adequate level of funding for those programs."

DHS Deputy Director James Loy also defended the department's funding stream, but said how funds are distributed should be adjusted. According to Loy, department officials believe "very deeply" that basic funding should be provided to states based on their populations to help them achieve a threshold of readiness and protection, but extra funding should be provided to states based on additional criteria.

Mitchell said these should include threat assessments, population density and critical infrastructure. "The Department of Homeland Security thinks something other than population is necessary to address the threat posed to America by terrorism," he said.

Mitchell said the department is analyzing strategic plans recently submitted by each state to better determine how to distribute funds. States were to submit three-year strategic plans to DHS by Jan. 31, 2004. The plans. Mitchell said, are collective analyses by states with input from local governments of their capabilities, requirements and priorities, as well as how federal funding will be spent.

Mitchell said DHS has about 28 grants ready to distribute to states based on the plans.

"The funding we provide the states is given with the flexibility for state and local governments to determine what they deem to be the most significant priorities, and they can allocate those funds in any portion they choose for the types of activities that are authorized by law," he said.

Mitchell acknowledged, however, that technical problems delayed the assessments. DHS established a Web page for states to submit their assessments, but the site became overloaded and crashed, which led to redundant submissions. As a result, DHS pushed the deadline back by one month to Jan. 31, 2004.

Mitchell added that the assessments might help DHS develop criteria for funding distributions next fiscal year.

He also said DHS tries to provide adequate funding to state and local governments to cover costs when it raises the nation's threat level to code orange, or a heightened state of alert. The department last raised the threat level during the December 2003 holidays.

DHS asked each state to submit their expenses for the last code orange by Feb. 20, 2004. A DHS official said not every state met the deadline, and some submitted costs that may not be relevant. The department is reviewing the information and probably will not know the overall costs for at least a couple more weeks.

Regardless, Mitchell said state and local governments already have fiscal year 2003 funding or grants they can use to cover costs associated with the last code orange.

"We've made all the grant funding that we have available," he said. "I think some people that say we haven't gotten any money mean they may have not gotten any money for their particular agency, but there is an enormous amount of money that the federal government has committed to state and local governments."