GAO: Feds lack data on emergency response grants
Investment justifications now required for urban area security grants provide more information on state spending, official says.
The federal government lacks adequate insight into how state and local governments spend grant funds for emergency preparedness and response activities, a senior official with the Government Accountability Office said Thursday.
"In the last several years, the federal government has awarded some $11 billion in grants to federal, state and local authorities to improve emergency preparedness, response and recovery capabilities," said William Jenkins, director of GAO's Homeland Security and Justice Issues division.
In written testimony before the Little Hoover Commission in California, which investigates state government operations, Jenkins said federal agencies know too little about how states and localities finance their homeland security and emergency preparedness efforts, use their federal funds and assess whether those funds are put to good use.
He noted that the Homeland Security Department now requires states to provide an "investment justification" in order to receive 2006 Urban Area Security Initiative grants. The justification plans outline state investments and initiatives, providing greater insight on how money is spent.
Federal, state and local governments should take several steps to ensure that investments and projects are effective, Jenkins said. They should develop strategic plans with clear goals, objectives and milestones; set performance goals; collect and analyze relevant and reliable data; assess the results; take action based on the results; and monitor the effectiveness of those actions.
"Assessing, developing, attaining and sustaining needed emergency preparedness, response and recovery capabilities is a difficult task that requires sustained leadership [and] the coordinated efforts of many stakeholders from a variety of first responder disciplines, levels of government and nongovernmental entities," Jenkins added. "There is a no silver bullet, no easy formula."
He also said Hurricane Katrina showed the need for better regional coordination between governments and agencies.
"Planning and assistance has largely been focused on single jurisdictions and their immediately adjacent neighbors," he said. "However, well-documented problems with first responders from multiple jurisdictions to communicate at the site of an incident and the potential for large-scale natural and terrorist disasters have generated a debate on the extent to which first responders should be focusing their planning and preparation on a regional and multigovernmental basis."