NCJ Number
206757
Date Published
June 2004
Length
50 pages
Annotation
This third in a series of reports by The U.S. Conference of Mayors on the flow of Federal homeland security funds through the States to cities presents the findings of the third survey (June 25, 2004) of cities regarding Federal homeland security funds sent to them through the 50 State governments.
Abstract
This report, as well as the previous two reports, presents the results of 50-State surveys of cities conducted by the Conference's Homeland Security Monitoring Center. The first survey, conducted September 17, 2003, found that from the perspective of city officials, the system created to deliver the homeland security funds through the States to local first responders in a timely fashion was not achieving that goal. The second survey, conducted January 22, 2004, asked for basically the same information on the same set of 10 Federal programs. It found that 5 months after the first survey, some additional cities had received fiscal year 2003 funding through some of the Federal programs, but most had not. By the end of 2003, more than three out of four surveyed cities had not received funding through the Federal First Responder/Critical Infrastructure program. Although this was an improvement over the 90 percent of cities not funded in August, it continued to fall far short of meeting the Nation's goal of providing homeland security funding to first responders. For some programs, the second survey found that funding had lost ground. The third survey found some progress in some areas, but little or none in other areas. By the end of May, 24 percent of the survey cities had received fiscal year 2003 funding through the Federal First Responder/Critical Infrastructure program, the same percentage reported in the previous survey. Another 24 percent had been told that they will receive funding. The balance of the cities, however, a larger group than in the previous survey, reported they would not be receiving funding. More than half of the surveyed cities reported receiving funding through the State Domestic Preparedness program, a much larger group than in the previous survey; the percentage of cities reporting they would not receive funding through this program stayed the same as in the previous survey. Even where progress is being indicated, however, the percentages of cities who reported that they are being funded, or that allowable uses of funds will address their top priorities, or that they have been given opportunities to influence State decisions on spending, remain at unacceptably low levels. This report provides information on cities' fiscal year 2003 funding for each of the 10 Federal homeland security funding programs, as well as the cities' fiscal year 2004 funding experience at the end of May 2004. Information is also provided on planning and communications and approaches to effective administration. Appended comparative survey findings and a list of survey cities