<http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/22/politics/22grants.html?th=&pagewanted=print&position=>
The New York Times December 22, 2004 Big Cities Will Get More in Antiterrorism Grants By ERIC LIPTON ASHINGTON, Dec. 21 - Responding to repeated calls from big-city mayors, the Department of Homeland Security is shifting a larger share of its annual $3.5 billion in antiterrorism grants to the nation's largest cities, allowing them to accelerate purchases of equipment and training needed to better defend against - or at least rapidly respond to - an attack. The biggest beneficiary of the shift is New York City, which has been awarded a $208 million grant for the 2005 fiscal year, compared with $47 million in the 2004 fiscal year, which ended on Sept. 30. That should allow the city to buy more devices that can detect chemical, biological or other hazards, increase training for its police and firefighters and spend more money on an intelligence center where it analyzes possible terrorist threats, one state official said. Los Angeles, Washington, Chicago and Boston also are getting larger grants, although the increase is not nearly as substantial as in New York. "We've been protecting the nation's financial and communications center on our own dime," said Raymond W. Kelly, New York City's police commissioner. "It's a national responsibility." Proponents of the shift say they hope it is only a first step in a more fundamental revamping of homeland security grants. But the change has evoked protests from cities that have dropped off the list or whose allocations have shrunk, including Orlando, Fla.; Memphis; and New Haven. "We are at the crossroads of America, for cars, for trains, for river traffic," said Claude Talford, director of emergency management services in the Memphis area, which received a $10 million grant for 2004 but is not slated to get any direct grant in 2005. "We are a prime location, a prime target, any way you look at it." Lobbying efforts are under way to try to reinstate financing to these communities. But homeland security officials said the grant allocations were final. Two shifts in homeland security financing are resulting in the reallocation of the grants. First, in the 2005 fiscal year, at the urging of President Bush, a larger share of the grants will be distributed directly to cities, instead of through a state program set up to ensure that both urban and rural areas got a cut. Second, of the money earmarked for high-risk cities, much more of it is going to the biggest cities: in the 2005 fiscal year, New York, Washington and Los Angeles will get 42 percent of the money, compared with 16 percent for the top three cities in 2004. This shift took place, homeland security officials said, because more possible targets - bridges, signature buildings, government facilities and other important structures - have been added to a database they use to calculate threats. Domestic terrorism incidents, whether actual attacks or just false reports, also are now factored into the formula. And instead of taking into account only population density, the department also now factors in a city's overall population. These changes explain not only why New York, Chicago and Los Angeles are getting larger grants, said Marc Short, a Homeland Security Department spokesman. They are also part of the reason that cities like Fresno, Calif.; Albany; and Richmond, Va., were dropped from the 2005 high-risk grant list, while cities like Jacksonville, Fla.; Arlington, Tex.; and Oklahoma City were added, Mr. Short said. Mr. Bush and some members of Congress had wanted to give an even greater share of the money directly to cities using a threat-based formula, instead of a state-by-state system, responding in part to criticism that states like Wyoming now get more per capita in terrorism grants than New York. But Congress this year curtailed the extent of the shift to threat-based grants. "This is a huge, huge step in the right direction, but it absolutely does not answer the need," Washington's city administrator, Robert C. Bobb, said of the $91 million the capital area will get in the two major homeland security grants, compared with $45 million this year. "We are the face of the United States, one of the most visible centers of government power and strength." For now, cities like New York, Washington and Los Angeles are preparing plans for spending their bigger-than-expected grants. In the Los Angeles area and New York, officials want to invest more in an intelligence clearinghouse to collect raw information on possible terrorist threats and then decide how to respond to them. "This will allow us to make some investments into some items that were just out of reach before," said Mark Leap, the assistant commanding officer in the Los Angeles Police Department counterterrorism bureau, of the $61 million grant to the Los Angeles area, compared with $28 million in the 2004 fiscal year. Washington wants to enhance its capacity to communicate with area residents in an emergency and to improve the ability of the capital region's public safety departments to communicate with one another, Mr. Bobb said. New York City officials also want to build a backup computer system allowing them to maintain operations in the event of an attack, as well as spend more money on training and, when necessary, station officers around possible targets. The Homeland Security Department still has more grants to give out for the 2005 fiscal year, so it remains impossible to predict how urban states like New York, California and Illinois will end up, on a per capita basis, compared with more rural states. But elected officials from these states say their push to direct money to the highest-risk cities is far from over. "The system is still flawed," said Representative Christopher Cox, Republican of California, who is chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. "It is at the intersection of threat and vulnerability that our money should be directed. But right now we are using a seat-of-the-pants analysis." -- ----------------- R. A. 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