Homeland Security Funding Still Misses the Mark
“Department needs to go back to the drawing board,” says Garrett
Washington,
Jun 1 -
Congressman Scott Garrett called the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) announcement of grant funding for Fiscal Year 2006 "an appalling lack of common sense."
"The Administration has pledged to move the grant formula to a risk-based assessment," said Garrett who has been working to bring more grant funding to North Jersey and the New York metro area since coming to Congress. "But, the formula the Department of Homeland Security used this year paid little more than lip service to that commitment."
Yesterday, DHS announced the distribution of $1.7 billion in funding through five separate programs: State Homeland Security Grant Program ($544.5 million), Urban Areas Security Initiative ($757.3 million), Law Enforcement Terrorism Prevention Program ($396 million), Metropolitan Medical Response System ($29.7 million), and Citizen Corps Program ($19.8 million). This is in addition to $10 billion already distributed to state and local governments since September 11th.
This year, New Jersey will receive a total of $51.98 million. While this still ranks NJ as the seventh largest recipient of homeland security funds, it represents a reduction of nearly $9 million from last year’s funding level. Of this year’s funding, $34.3 million is slated for the Jersey City/Newark area. Forty-six urban areas are getting this city-based funding, with New Jersey’s high-risk urban center number 5 on that list.
"We can never be 100% certain that we can be prepared for 100% of the threats terrorists dream up," said Garrett. "We must prioritize our finite resources as best we can based on risk. DHS made an improvement in moving away from a grant formula based largely on population, but the new formula remains fundamentally flawed."
Last week, Congressman Garrett authored amendments to the DHS appropriations bill for Fiscal Year 2007 to redirect a higher proportion of homeland security funds to areas of highest risk, like North Jersey. "I intend to continue to fight against this seriously misguided policy," stated Garrett.
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