DHS Ultimately Listens to NAPO and Loosens
Strings on Homeland Security Grants

On November 5, 2008, in response to pressure from Congress, NAPO and state and local leaders, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced plans to greatly reduce the requirements usually attached to its counterterrorism grants.  For fiscal 2009, the department will give out approximately $3 billion dollars to states and localities to assist them in terrorism prevention. 

Among the most significant changes made, DHS loosened rules to allow recipients to spend up to 50 percent of homeland security grants for personnel expenses, up from 25 percent, and removed the 25 percent local-match requirement for rail, transit and port security aid.

NAPO testified twice in front of Congress in the 110^th Congress on the issue of federal support for state and local law enforcement and the need to make federal grant funds more user-friendly.  NAPO called on the administration to give state and local law enforcement the resources they need to prevent terrorism and fight crime on the streets.  For the past several years, the federal government has been focusing on its own agenda and not listening to the needs of its state and local partners.  This narrow viewpoint has resulted in drastic cuts in funding to vital state and local law enforcement programs and a shift in focus from fighting drugs, gangs and violent crime to terrorism prevention.   NAPO strongly believes that combating crime and preventing terrorism are not mutually exclusive – they are interrelated in the fight to protect the homeland and should not be treated as separate issues.

Only a couple of years following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security in 2002, NAPO witnessed steep declines in the funding levels for critical law enforcement counterterrorism programs.  By fiscal 2007, the three primary DHS grant programs - the State Homeland Security Grant Program, the Law Enforcement Terrorism Prevention Program, and the Urban Area Security Initiative – had been slashed by almost 50 percent from fiscal 2003 levels.  Yet law enforcement’s role in homeland security has not diminished along with the funding. 

Today, local police departments, already undermanned due to a lack of resources to hire new officers, must place officers into Drug, Gang and Terrorism Task Forces, as well as protect critical infrastructure during periods of heightened national threat advisory levels, often at the expense of street patrols.  More often than not, the funds most needed by local law enforcement agencies are those that can be used to hire new officers, retain officers, and obtain new equipment. 

The change in DHS policy, especially regarding the use of grant funds for personnel use, will help lessen the strain on states and localities.  There will be fewer agencies having to choose between keeping police officers on the street or maintaining equipment, systems and supplies intended to respond to a terrorist attack.

This is a positive step toward giving state and local law enforcement the user-friendly tools it needs to protect our communities from crime and terrorism.  NAPO continues to work to ensure vital grant programs are fully funded and that America’s law enforcement has the full support of its government.

For more information on the new DHS grant rules, please contact NAPO’s Director of Governmental Affairs, Andy Mournighan, at (703) 549-0775.