Almost three years after the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, many American cities complain that federal money to train and equip police, fire and other emergency workers is still only trickling through to those who need it most.
The biggest US cities say they are being short-changed in the fight against terrorism by red tape and flaws in the system for handing out federal funds to prepare for future attacks.
"The mechanism for getting funds down to cities and towns is not working as well as it should," said Michael Reinemer, spokesman for the National League of Cities. "In some places there have been some serious logjams."
Centres like Los Angeles, New York and Washington complain that they are losing out because of a system that failed to make sure money would be directed to the most vulnerable places.
A formula that mandates 40 percent of the money in the main Homeland Security grant programme be divided equally among US states has meant rural states with few obvious targets receive up to six times more money per capita than high risk places like New York.
City officials also cite confusion over how various grants work and exactly how and when to apply for them.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg last month told the commission investigating the September 2001 attacks that the funding system was "tragically misguided".
"This is pork barrel politics at its worse. It's the kind of short-sighted "me first" nonsense that gives Washington a bad name. It also, unfortunately, has the effect of aiding and abetting those who hate us and plot against us," Bloomberg said.
Bloomberg said that in fiscal year 2004, New York state received $5.47 per capita in Homeland Security grants. Nebraska received $14.33 per capita, Wyoming $38.31 and American Samoa $101.43.
"Every single high-threat specialist will tell you that the money should go where the need is," Representative Carolyn Maloney, a Democrat who represents parts of Manhattan in Congress, told a news conference last month. "Obviously the need is in New York, yet the funding formulas do not reflect that. We're not getting our share."
The US government has called five "orange" alerts since March 2002, raising the colour-coded terror threat level to high. The orange alert obliges cities to step up security patrols at key sites such as airports, government buildings and national landmarks ranging from San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge to New York's Empire State Building.
A report in April by the House Select Committee on Homeland Security said that 80 percent of the $6.3 billion in federal funds was either stuck in bureaucratic channels or had been misspent on questionable projects.
In one case, a Tennessee high school got help to buy a defibrillator for use during a district basketball tournament. In California, Santa Clara County spent some grant money on scuba diving gear even though there are no large bodies of water in the county. And in rural Missouri, homeland security funds were used to buy biochemical warfare suits for each of the 13,000 law enforcement officers in the state.
The Homeland Security Department in March created a task force to speed up the distribution of money to states and local governments. It is expected to come up with recommendations within the next two months.
Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said at the time that the department "shares the concerns of communities anticipating these funds...By identifying best practices and determining ways to implement them across the country, the task force will put homeland security dollars into the hands of first responders more rapidly."
Homeland Security officials said Ridge had asked Congress in its 2005 budget to increase the allocation of homeland security funding through the Urban Area Security Initiative, which is directed at cities most at risk, to almost half from between a quarter to a third previously.
Some cities, many of which are already struggling to close budget deficits, are already out of pocket.
Since the September 11 attacks, Los Angeles has spent some $150 million on security enhancements which included personal protective gear, training and overtime costs for police and emergency workers, according to Elizabeth Kaltman, press deputy to Mayor James Hahn.
The city has recovered only about $2.3 million from the federal government. Another $4.7 million is on its way to cover overtime costs for police during three orange alerts in 2003 and another $6.4 million is further down the pipeline.
But said Kaltman: "The money that has been spent out of the general fund is not going to be reimbursed."
Los Angeles has qualified for $74 million in grants under a federal programme as well as a California state scheme that can be used for future purchases of equipment.
But in a Catch-22 dilemma, to get the $74 million dollars, Los Angeles must first buy equipment using its own funds at a time when it is struggling to close a projected $250 million to $300 million budget shortfall for the next fiscal year.
"We presume we are a target. We have no choice," Mayor Hahn told Reuters. "We'll have to make some difficult choices about what we can afford."
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