To view this site you need Adobe Flash Player and your browser must allow javaScripts. Go here to get the latest Flash Player. FUNDING & RESOURCES Stimulus funding expands opportunities for police and fire BY MICHAEL PADDOCK FOR YEARS, STATE AND LOCAL HOMELAND SECURITY HAS GRADUALLY BEEN EVOLVING TO BECOME MORE AGENCY AND SECTOR SPECIFIC, MOVING AWAY, THOUGH NOT ENTIRELY, FROM THE BROAD, AMORPHOUS POOLS OF FUNDING THAT CHARACTERIZED ITS EARLY DAYS. It may have been that in 2002 and 2003 we just needed to start throwing money at the problem of homeland vulnerabilities until it started to take shape. But as time has gone on and cooler heads have prevailed, the approach has come to resemble other grant programs in its transparency and predictability. So, partly in keeping with the general direction of the funding and partly as a policy statement for moving homeland security funding forward, funding in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA)— the stimulus package—has directed all of the state and local homeland security funding for specific purposes or within specific sectors. There is no bump for the UrbanArea Security Initiative and no addition of funding for the State Homeland Security Program. Instead,the funding supports transit,rail and port security initiatives, renovations to fire department facilities and a range of law enforcement activities. ment of Agriculture’s Community Facilities Program since the program was expanded to include emergency response agencies in 2004. That program also received an additional $130 million in the stimulus, with $67 million going for loans and $63 million for grants. The big winners in the stimulus from a first responder perspective are law enforcement agencies. Police departments across the country will take the lion’s share of the $2 billion allocated for the Justice Assistance Grants state and local formula funding, though courts and other justice agencies can participate. The $225 million set aside for law enforcement and justice agencies in the Byrne Competitive Grant Program seems small when many other ARRA programs are scaled in the billions of dollars. However, because of budget cuts or congressional earmarks in the past, this program is the first real opportunity local law enforcement agencies have to compete for funding in the same way, if not at the same level of funding, as fire departments have been since before the turn of the century. Law enforcement agencies are also set to receive additional funding depending on their locations. ARRA provides $225 million for tribal agencies to construct jails through the Correctional Facilities on Tribal Lands Program. Primarily focused on countering the scourge of methamphetamine production, the act adds $125 million for the Assistance to Rural Law Enforcement to Combat Crime and Drugs Program. Finally, in addition to several other programs for victim compensation, reducing violence against women and fighting Internet crimes against children, ARRA provides $40 million for the State and Local Law Enforcement Assistance Program: Combating Criminal Narcotics Activity Stemming from the Southern Border of the United States. This funding is specifically for the purpose of supporting state and local prosecutors and parole, probation and community corrections agencies to fight the increasingly well-publicized criminal narcotics activity in the southern geographic land border of the United States, which encompasses California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. Future evolution Certainly, the competitive environment requires more up-front work on the part of the grantees, and not every agency’s up-front work pays off. But the projects that are funded have been determined by objective review to be either most in need or most likely to be implemented successfully. Moreover, when the agencies get their awards,they have more than a cursory set of guidelines to follow in rolling out their projects. They have the plan they submitted in their applications. They also have a description of the need the project is addressing and a plan for measuring and evaluating the outcomes they have accrued as a result of implementing the projects—elements that are too easily overlooked when the funding is guaranteed. Sector-specific support in theARRA,along with the total absence of earmarks that would have exiled the money to politically motivated, opaque and often unnecessary projects, promises to make the most of the funding that did make it in for homeland security. As a policy statement, following the money in ARRA also provides a look ahead at how these funds will be allocated in the future. On that premise, it looks as if the new administration will continue, and perhaps even accelerate,the evolution of the funding for state and local public safety and emergency response. HST Fire and law enforcement Fire departments have long been the beneficiaries of the best-administered homeland security grant program in the country—the Assistance to Firefighters Grants Program. ARRA adds $210 million for firehouse construction. As with all funding underARRA,the funds will be administered, accounted for and reported on separately ,but the functional use of the money is little more than an addition of construction as an allowable use under the existing “Modifications to Facilities” category within the Assistance to Firefighters program. The annual program doesn’t allow for major construction, and this recovery funding will support only that function. Not all fire departments have been languishing without construction funding, of course. Firehouse construction has been funded for rural agencies under the Depart- Michael Paddock is CEO of Grants Office LLC. He can be reached at MPaddock@grantsoffice.com. Register online today for exclusive online content and eNewsletters Homeland Security Today Magazine | May 2009 9