September 29, 2003

One month after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the nation, The United States Conference of Mayors brought more than 200 mayors, police and fire chiefs, emergency managers and public health officials to Washington to examine the new and challenging security issues confronting the vast majority of Americans who live in cities, to examine the extraordinary costs already incurred by the cities in the weeks following the attacks, and to examine the even greater costs projected by the cities as they prepared to take on their new homeland security responsibilities. Led by then-Conference President Mayor Marc Morial of New Orleans, this summit meeting of local leaders drafted a sweeping "National Action Plan for Safety and Security in America's Cities," which included an appeal to the Congress and the administration for a new homeland security block grant that would provide federal funds directly to cities to meet needs such as police and fire overtime, additional training for personnel, communications and rescue equipment, and security measures to protect airports, ports, utilities, public transit, and other public infrastructure.

ctly to cities to meet needs such as police and fire overtime, additional training for personnel, communications and rescue equipment, and security measures to protect airports, ports, utilities, public transit, and other public infrastructure.

The next year-and-a-half saw unrelenting efforts by the nation's mayors to obtain direct federal funding for cities to help meet the costs of the higher level of security that was demanded following the attacks — costs which had to be covered with local revenues — and to ensure that this funding would be distributed to their cities in an equitable and timely fashion. In other words, the mayors efforts were to ensure that the funding would get to local first responders and others needing it without being either diluted or delayed.

The FY 2003 federal appropriations bill finally enacted by the Congress in March 2003 — 18 months after the terrorist attacks — and the supplemental appropriation enacted the following month provided some long-overdue funding for several state and local homeland security programs. While these bills did not include the direct federal funding of local homeland security initiatives that had been consistently sought by the Conference of Mayors, the April supplemental appropriation did include significant funding for first responders, a timetable to be followed by the Department of Homeland Security in distributing the federal funds to the states, and a timetable to be followed by the states in distributing these funds to localities.

This past June, at our annual meeting in Denver, Hempstead (NY) Mayor James Garner assumed the Presidency of the Conference of Mayors. After reviewing the homeland security policy adopted by the Democratic and Republican mayors assembled, Mayor Garner determined that, because the new homeland security funding may be the most important federal funding provided to cities this year and in years ahead, the federal plan for the distribution of the funds, which works through the states, must be closely monitored to determine whether it is being followed, whether it is performing adequately, and whether improvements can be made. Mayor Garner and our other mayors believe that too much is at stake for America's homeland security system to be permitted to perform below its fullest capacity.

A recommendation to create a Homeland Security Monitoring Center within the Conference of Mayors emerged from a meeting of the Conference's Homeland Security Task Force, chaired by Baltimore Mayor Martin O-Malley, during the Denver meeting. As Executive Director, I was charged with creating the new Center and with launching its first activity — the monitoring of the billions of federal dollars going from Washington to the 50 State Houses, and the monitoring of their distribution by the states to our first responders. This first activity — the survey reported in this document — was developed by a Conference leadership team that included Mayor O-Malley; Elizabeth (NJ) Mayor J. Christian Bollwage, chair of our Criminal and Social Justice Committee; Gary (IN) Mayor Scott King, chair of our Mayors and Police Chiefs Task Force; Louisville Metro Mayor Jerry Abramson, a Past President of the Conference; and Sugar Land (TX) Mayor David Wallace, co-chair of the Homeland Security Task Force.

ference; and Sugar Land (TX) Mayor David Wallace, co-chair of the Homeland Security Task Force.

Mayors' continuing concerns about state administration of federal homeland security funding are grounded in many cities' past experience with their states in other areas of public service delivery. Indeed, the survey described in this document — the first-ever 50'state assessment of the flow of federal homeland security funds to our cities — found that, based on recent years' experience in working with their states, officials in just one in four cities expect to be substantially involved in their states' homeland security planning processes. The survey findings which follow call attention to one of the mayors' most serious concerns — that is, because the federal homeland security funds are being distributed through the states, cities will not be receiving the specific resources they need to meet their greatly increased security responsibilities.

You will see other concerns reflected in officials' responses to several survey questions. Again and again, mayors and other officials report that they are not given adequate opportunities to influence their states in regard to how these funds can be used, either in individual cities or in broader urban areas. City leaders who have become knowledgeable about the latest homeland security technology and equipment are frustrated when the funds they finally receive cannot be spent on what they know is most needed.

City leaders are also frustrated because the federal homeland security funding they hoped would flow through a streamlined distribution system designed to meet first responders' needs is, in reality, being pumped through a much more traditional system in which state decision-makers tend to view counties, rather than cities, as the focal points of emergency and disaster response.

Our survey results show that under the most important first responder funding program, just one in 10 cities had actually received money by August 1. They show, unfortunately, that mayors' concerns have been well-founded, and that the long'sought federal funding for our cities' first responders has been both diluted and delayed.

The ultimate goal of any survey conducted by the Conference of Mayors is to assemble information that can be used to improve the program or process being examined. That is certainly the case with this survey. Mayors have been working very closely with the Department of Homeland Security and Secretary Tom Ridge, and with key members of Congress, on the homeland security issues that they consider most important. How best to get local first responders and the resources they need tops our list of priorities, and we believe this survey points to improvements that need to be made to the current process.

In the United States of America, the responsibility for the protection of citizens has long resided at the city level. This is a part of our cultural heritage that gathered strength from the founder of the modern American police movement, Theodore Roosevelt, when he was Police Commissioner of New York City. When it spread to the South and the West, it was the sheriff who was charged with protecting local people from harm.

Today we stand with out first responders — the fire, police, emergency managers and public health officials, men and women — who risk their lives day and night. Unlike mayors in other industrialized nations, the U.S. mayor stands alone as a citizen elected to protect his or her people in times of danger — danger such as we all are experiencing in the international and domestic war against terrorism. The nation's mayors stand ready to work with the White House and the Congress to ensure that our first responders receive the financial and moral support needed to take on the tremendous challenges ahead. It is in the purest spirit of patriotism that we offer this report and pledge our total support for a new, reformed homeland security system that will, in the end, maintain true hometown security where the vast majority of Americans live and work.

Tom Cochran, Executive Director

September 17, 2003