By Dana Bykowski
July 12, 2004

Past Conference President and former mayor of Ft. Wayne (IN) Paul Helmke addressed mayors at a morning plenary session June 28th at the 72st annual meeting held in Boston. Helmke outlined several key strategies for using federal homeland security dollars and technology in such a way that is most beneficial to the city and its residents. Sufficient funding is a critical issue for mayors across the nation, mainly because they are not receiving the amount of dollars needed to fully fund first responders, technology and equipment because the funds are still stuck, and more importantly funds are always appropriated to fund the greatest needs. Helmke's understanding and expertise comes not only from serving the city of Ft. Wayne for twelve years, but Helmke is currently serving as the Chairman for SentryPoints. Sentry Points provide cities with a central location where city officials and response agency personnel can come together to monitor, plan, coordinate and execute emergency response operations.

Sentry Points recently sponsored the third report in a series of surveys conducted by the United States Conference of Mayors focusing on the flow of federal homeland security dollars through the states to the nation's cities. The survey, which was released June 25, indicates that some progress has been made in bringing more federal homeland security dollars to cities. More than half the survey cities reported are in fact now receiving funding through the State Domestic Preparedness program. However, the study also indicated that even though there have been significant improvements, the system created by the federal government to deliver funding through the states to local first responders in a timely manner continues to be a problem for many mayors.

"Local governments should have access to technology, communication systems and resources that are on par with our military. But until that happens, every mayor in America should utilize the resources and technology that they do have to the best of their ability," said Helmke.

Helmke highlighted several key challenges that mayors often face in dealing with homeland security issues at the local level, even after the funds reach local governments. For one, mayors face increasing costs to adequately fund the need for first responders, training and equipment and other disaster preparedness resources. Secondly, many cities lack sufficient funding to keep up the need for local police to work overtime at major public events and during times when the national threat level is raised. Third, there is no national coordinated response effort in place that allows state and local governments to communicate effectively during a geographic specific or national emergency.

"It is critical that mayors show state and federal officials that as well as local constituents that we can use homeland security dollars and resources efficiently and effectively," Helmke told the mayors.

Furthermore, Helmke stated the importance of showing that cities not only must know how to use the funding and technology that is made available to cities, but mayors must also know how to deal with the public if a crisis should arise. To do this, Helmke recommended doing a vulnerability assessment of the city and its resources as a whole, anticipate and evaluate the risk factor, and analyze the threat level when a situation arises.

"SentryPoints is a resource for mayors to help them achieve this monumental task, because they can't do it alone," said Helmke.

SentryPoints serves as a command center through which anticipating and evaluating the threat level, and then assigning a risk factor to the different situations that can arise. SentryPoints command and control software provides cities with a sophisticated task administration and communication system ideal for both daily security operations management and real-time emergency response. For more information about Sentry Points please contact Kathryn Kretchmer-Weyland at the United States Conference of Mayors at (202) 861-6703 or visit www.sentrypointsllc.net.