Mayors Protest Cuts in Antiterrorism Funds

WASHINGTON, June 21 — Protecting major American cities against terrorism requires investing federal dollars not just in high-tech gadgets but also in police officers working in uniform and under cover, the mayors of New York and Washington told a House committee on Wednesday.

The joint message, from Mayors Michael R. Bloomberg of New York and Anthony A. Williams of Washington, came as the two protested a plan by the Department of Homeland Security to cut grants to the cities by 40 percent in the coming year.

New York and Washington still received some of the biggest grants announced on May 31, which totaled $711 million. New York got $124 million, 18 percent of the total, and the Washington area received $46.5 million, 7 percent.

But their allotments were cut, at least in part, because of plans to use the money to pay police officers instead of investing in antiterrorism tools or training, Mr. Bloomberg told the House Committee on Homeland Security, calling such a choice shortsighted.

"Time and again, human intelligence has disrupted terrorism planning," Mr. Bloomberg said, "from a plot to bomb a major subway station in our city during the 2004 Republican National Convention, to the conspiracy revealed earlier this month to attack targets in Ontario, Canada."

Mr. Bloomberg said the Department of Homeland Security seemed almost too caught up in the fictional, high-tech world of antiterrorism and crime fighting as portrayed on television, forgetting that cities like New York and Washington would need financial help for years to pay for antiterrorism teams.

Mr. Williams agreed. "There are just probably many more examples of where you've had great technology but you haven't invested on the ground in people, and it's been a tremendous flop," he said.

George W. Foresman, the under secretary for preparedness at the department, told the committee that Congress had imposed restrictions on how much of the urban grants could be spent on personnel and overtime, and that Congress was also responsible for an overall reduction in grant dollars.

But Mr. Foresman acknowledged that the department must do a better job explaining its decision-making process.

The New York City police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, gave the committee details on what he said were 18 attempts or successful plots by terrorists to attack New York since 1990, which he said was why the city has about 1,000 officers assigned to a counterterrorism unit. Since the federal urban area grant program started in the 2003 fiscal year, Mr. Kelly said, the Police Department has been allocated $280 million, spending 40 percent on overtime, 35 percent on equipment and the rest on training.

The cut this year will most likely mean delaying a plan to install a surveillance system in the financial district in Lower Manhattan, Mr. Kelly said, similar to the so-called Ring of Steel in central London.

"These programs cost money," he said. "There's no question about it."

The pleas from the two mayors and their top police officials were endorsed by many members of the House committee, including its chairman, Representative Peter T. King, Republican of New York.

"This was a stab in the back to the city of New York," Mr. King said of the 40 percent cut in the antiterrorism grant. "It was indefensible. It was disgraceful."

But some members expressed sympathy for the hard choices that the Homeland Security Department must make.

"I hope the political forces will not undermine you," said Representative Sheila Jackson-Lee, Democrat of Texas. "Rather than administration funding and Congressional funding going upwards, it was going down. So you were operating with a much smaller pot."