From Newsday:

Feds slash NYC's anti-terror funds

BY LUIS PEREZ AND J. JIONI PALMER
NEWSDAY STAFF WRITERS

June 1, 2006

Despite being the site of the nation's deadliest terrorist attack, New York City will see a 40 percent reduction in federal anti-terror funds this year.

The city's 2006 anti-terrorism allowance -- slated to pay for ongoing emergency preparedness and training -- will plummet to $124.5 million, from $207.5 million last year, according to figures released Wednesday.

"I really look at this as a declaration of war on New York," said House Homeland Security Chairman Peter King (R- Seaford).

King said he was told by Homeland Security Undersecretary for Preparedness George Foresman that New York got a smaller share of federal dollars this year because of alleged shoddy paperwork within the Department of Homeland Security.

"I have not received one rational, responsible answer," King said.

Earlier this year, Congress slashed $100 million from the pot of anti-terrorism money doled out to 46 cities across the country. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said at the time the agency was shifting its overall grant-making formulas to direct money to cities at risk.

New York City officials, who since the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center that killed 2,749 people have fought for more anti-terror funds, were flabbergasted by the rollbacks.

"When you stop a terrorist, they have a map of New York City in their pocket," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Wednesday. "They don't have a map of any of the other 46 or 45 places."

"There is something seriously flawed with a process that results in a 40 percent cut to the city highest on the terrorists' target list," Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said.

Jarrod Agen, a Homeland Security spokesman, did not comment on King's remarks. However, Agen said New York felt the double crunch of less money to go around and more cities classifying for funds.

"I want to be clear that New York isn't any less at risk than previous years," Agen said. "There is just less total to work with."

California is getting the largest share of the total of more than $700 million.

Meanwhile, New York State's federal allocations dropped by 36 percent, from $290 million last year to $183.6 million this year, officials said. Worst off in the state was Buffalo, which lost nearly half of the $7.2 million it received last year.

One government official who requested anonymity provided Newsday with a page from a federal document detailing New York City's terrorism risk assessment. While it was not clear what formulas were used to generate the information, the document listed the city as having no "national monuments or icons" and just four "banking and finance" institutions.

According to Crain's "2006 Book of Lists," the city is home to 10 commercial banks that generate more than $8 billion a year, the official pointed out.

"Have you ever heard of the Statue of Liberty?" blasted Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), who said he saw the documents and called the cuts a deliberate political attack on the state and city. "It seems that the administration is concerned more about the safety of Georgia peanut farmers than the Statue of Liberty or the Empire State Building."

Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-Brooklyn-Queens), a member of the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security, distributed a "possible" list of the nation's landmarks vying with New York's own for terror dollars.

The list paired Knotts Camp Snoopy Amusement Park in Minnesota's Twin Cities against the Empire State Building, and the Obsolete Computer Museum in Toledo, Ohio, with Wall Street.

"This is shameful," said Rep. Vito Fossella (R-N.Y.), who Wednesday held an afternoon news conference at Ground Zero, the site of the largest terrorist attack on U.S. soil. "The pork barrel distribution of homeland security funding remains alive and well in Washington."

Staff writer Bryan Virasami contributed to this story, which was supplemented by an Associated Press report.

Copyright 2006 Newsday Inc.