Security

I know everyone in the US feels like they're in danger following the terrorist attacks on 9/11/01, and everyone wants a bigger share of Federal money, but these recent Homeland Security grant changes are a joke.

This has got to upset anyone who feels like the Federal government wastes money, regardless of where you live or what you think about terrorism.

If you want to be safe, sounds like it's time to move to Louisville, Omaha or Charlotte.

Some highlights from the article (NY Times 5/31/06, by Eric Lipton):
The net effect was that the grant to New York City, which was $207.6 million last year, will drop to $124.5 million this year, while Washington will see its grant dollars drop a similar 40 percent, to $46.5 million this year.

Meanwhile, grants for cities like Louisville, Omaha and Charlotte, N.C., each jumped by about 40 percent, to about $8.5 million each. Newark and Jersey City, which received a combined grant, also saw a large increase, rising 44 percent to $34 million.

Overall, New York State will get $183.7 million, which is a 20 percent drop from last year. That means New York State's per capita share of grant funds, which totals $2.78 per person, will drop to an even lower level compared to some rural states, like Wyoming, which will get $14.83 per person this year.

Ms. Henke, who recently took over the office that distributed anti-terrorism grants, said the relative changes in the grant dollars are based on just the kind of detailed analysis of threat and vulnerability that officials in Washington have been calling for in criticizing past awards.

The competition for the grants this year kicked off in January when Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced that in the fourth year of these awards, which were started after the 2001 attacks, the department would put much more emphasis on directing the money to the most likely possible terrorist targets.
----------

So NY and Washington get less Federal money after a revised system to allocate dollars based on threat analysis, vulnerability and more probable terrorist targets. Maybe someone should have double checked this algorithm!
Tags: Homeland Security, terrorism