**What do funds for a horse, a snowmobile, and an airplane rental have
in common?**

***They have all been funded with***

***[Homeland Security grants]{.underline}***

Dear Colleague:

Please see the recent *Arizona Republic* article below exposing wasteful
Homeland Security grant funding. Other news reports have noted that some
fire departments have used Homeland Security grants to buy "gym
equipment, sponsor puppet and clown shows, and turn first responders
into fitness trainers." These spending problems are not just in Arizona,
but are happening across the fifty states.

The concept of Congressional oversight demands that we ensure that
homeland security funds actually go to advance national security, rather
than parochial political interests. With increasing demands on DHS to
implement immigration reform and border security, we can not waste money
on frivolous district projects. We must not allow homeland security
funds to be wasted like this.

                                                                       
Sincerely,

JEFF FLAKE

Member of Congress

<http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/0511homelandsecurity.html>

**Local agencies\' use of U.S. security aid questioned**

**Susan Carroll**\
The Arizona Republic\
May. 11, 2006 12:00 AM

Arizona public safety agencies have spent hundreds of thousands of
dollars in federal grant money on equipment they are not certified to
use or to pay for projects with only a tenuous link to homeland
security.\
\
With little initial guidance and flush with money after the Sept. 11
attacks, police and fire departments statewide shored up budget
shortfalls and bought things like ATVs, Q-Tips and \$50,000 worth of
binoculars with nearly \$178 million in Homeland Security Department
grants.\
\
Despite what one small-town official described as a spending \"frenzy,\"
many local officials managed to put the money toward security
priorities: shoring up communications, buying better protective gear for
police and firefighters and purchasing mobile command centers for
emergencies.\
\
But an *Arizona Republic* review of thousand of pages of records and
receipts found that some local governments made many questionable
purchases under the guise of homeland security, including \$38 leather
wallets for all Capitol Police officers and a \$47 hat badge for the
police chief.\
\
Many small cities and towns that are unlikely targets for a terrorist
attack received disproportionate amounts of money, often more per capita
than Phoenix, Tucson or Mesa.\
\
Consider:\
\
• Gila County spent \$93,000 to rent planes, snowmobiles and a horse to
create more accurate assessor maps. Meanwhile, local law enforcement
went without protective masks because it was too expensive to certify
them.\
\
• The police chief in Holbrook, population 5,100, was approved to spend
\$40,000 for a video surveillance system to monitor \"potential
terrorist targets,\" including a park, a water tower and intersections.\
\
• Apache County bought a dozen 6X6 ATVs at more than \$11,500 each,
while a local fire department relied on 20-year-old air packs for its
firefighters.\
\
State officials responsible for administering the federal funds said
personnel shortages led to lax oversight and poor tracking in the
initial years. But they also said they followed federal guidelines and
approved purchase lists and have made improvements since 2003. They also
plan to add more staff.\
\
In response to *The Republic\'s* investigation, Gov. Janet Napolitano
has ordered a review of the Arizona Department of Emergency
Management\'s handling of the funds. The state also plans to set up a
formal site-monitoring program and create an online ordering and
approval system.

### \'Boys with toys\'

In the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, Congress allocated billions of
dollars for the states to divvy up through the State Homeland Security
Grant Program. States received money based on a formula roughly the same
model used for transportation funding: Each state would get 0.75 percent
of the funds, plus a share based on population.\
\
The Phoenix area was identified as a high-risk city for a terrorist
attack and was eligible for millions under another grant program, the
Urban Area Security Initiative.\
\
Frank Navarrette, Arizona\'s emergency management director, acknowledged
that the department struggled to oversee the massive infusion of
Homeland Security money, as Arizona\'s share grew from about \$3 million
in 2001 to more than \$61 million in 2003.\
\
Each agency wanted \"their own red fire truck in their own driveway, and
they each wanted their own bomb squad,\" Navarrette said. \"And that\'s
natural, to say, \'I want to take care of my own turf.\' \"\
\
By 2004, Arizona officials set up regional advisory committees to help
cut down on duplication and waste and to ensure local governments bought
compatible radio systems and equipment that was up to federal
standards.\
\
Nationwide, officials on the federal, state and local levels all tried
to rein in the spending sprees, which had become at times chaotic and
haphazard. Media reports surfaced about Washington, D.C., police buying
leather jackets and a remote Alaskan town installing video
surveillance.\
\
\"We basically spent money so we could have these first responders
running around like boys with toys,\" said James Carafano, a senior
fellow for homeland security at the conservative, Washington, D.C.-based
Heritage Foundation. "In most cases, these are people spending money
just to spend money. They\'re buying things that they would never buy
but (that) are just kind of nice to have.\"

### Oversight

The Homeland Security grants are designed to better equip first
responders for a terrorist attack or major natural disaster. The federal
government publishes updated guidelines each year that detail what
equipment is acceptable but leaves the specifics about purchasing up to
the state and local agencies.\
\
In the first few years after Sept. 11, as long as the equipment was on
the federal government\'s approved list, the state generally allowed the
orders. Still, the state rejected some purchases, like multiple
plasma-screen TVs, even though they were approved under the guidelines.\
\
Four years after the terrorist attacks, Navarrette said the state staff
handling the grant programs is still \"overwhelmed.\" Three people
administer the program full time, although Navarrette said the
department is advertising for another position.\
\
After Sept. 11, the state did not electronically track how much Homeland
Security money was spent on specific types of equipment, from protective
gear to bomb robots. The state kept thick binders and file folders for
grant program receipts during the first few years, but some of those
folders were empty.\
\
The state could provide no documentation for site-monitoring visits or
formal audits but said a review was launched in April in response to
*The Republic*\'s investigation and will be finished by August.\
\
Recently, the state required some agencies, including the Capitol
Police, which spent \$3,100 on wallets, badges and a chief\'s hat badge,
to reimburse the government after inquiries from *The Republic*.\
\
Navarrette said the state plans to investigate any suspect purchases,
but he also cautioned that at times, homeland security is \"in the eye
of the beholder.\"\
\
Gila County officials defended their decision to put a chunk of Homeland
Security funds toward the mapping project, under way before the grants
became available. Mariano Gonzalez, the Gila emergency management
director, said the project could provide first responders with
more-accurate maps and data when they respond to an emergency in a
remote area.\
\
And in Holbrook, the small town that received funds for video
surveillance cameras, Chief D. Wayne Hartup said the money would go to
monitor \"critical government infrastructure.\"\
\
\"We\'ve all been advised that potential (terrorism) targets would be
government buildings, major intersections and water towers,\" he said.\
\
Richard Guinn, deputy sheriff for Apache County, said the ATVs were
ordered because \"most of our county is extremely rural, and we needed
vehicles that could move people in and out of remote areas.\" The state
recently asked Apache County to reallocate the ATVs so they would all be
put to use.

### Stocking up

When the money first started pouring into the state after Sept. 11, some
local governments stocked up on the basics, even though the grant
program was not designed to fill gaps in local public safety budgets.\
\
La Paz County stocked up like Y2K was coming again. The county bought 50
rolls of police and sheriff\'s barricade tape, 200 bottles of antiseptic
hand cleanser and 46 traffic vests. Yuma expensed a rake, Q-Tips and a
shoe brush.\
\
Some purchases ended up in storage, like dozens of breathing masks
bought for law enforcement in Gila County, including the Payson Police
Department, which found it was too costly to certify officers with the
required training and fit testing.\
\
\"This money was never supposed to be an entitlement to states to
supplement their public safety needs,\" Carafano said. \"State and local
governments need to find a way to pay for the things that they\'re
responsible for, and that\'s local public safety needs. That\'s their
job.\"\
\
Graham County bought 100 pairs of Fujinon binoculars worth more than
\$500 each, at the recommendation of a local planning committee. The
binoculars went to every police officer and firefighter, and the highway
foreman, the county engineer and a few folks in emergency management.
Two pairs were given to Eastern Arizona College, where the two campus
security officers have put them to use, but not for terrorism-related
activity.\
\
\"We\'ve had some problems with vandalism,\" said Bill Mulleneaux, chief
of security for the college. \"We\'ve used them from strategic locations
to see (suspects) graffitiing.\"\
\
Apache County in northeastern Arizona bought a dozen 6X6 Polaris ATV
Rangers that cost more than \$11,500 each for law enforcement, fire
agencies and the Public Works Department. One agency, the St. Johns
Police Department, lobbied the county to trade their ATV for radio
equipment, first-aid kits, GPS, binoculars and trauma kits.\
\
\"We hadn\'t had a use for it (the ATV) in two years,\" Chief Jim Zieler
said. \"I figured it was better for me to purchase something my guys
could use every day.\"

### Training funds

Money also went to training and education, most of it for hazardous
materials and bomb squads. But Santa Cruz County sent a staff member who
administers the grants to a \"fundamentals of accounting\" seminar. Yuma
spent \$1,000 on Yuma Area Ammonia Awareness Safety Day because some
factories on the southern side of the border use ammonia.\
\
Officials in Yavapai County held a drill simulating a terrorist attack
in Cottonwood (population roughly 10,000) in March 2004. The mock attack
involved a twin-engine plane with anthrax onboard crashing into Mingus
Union High School. To make it more realistic, officials paid the school
drama teacher \$228 to put bloodlike makeup on students in the drill and
paid \$65 for a substitute teacher.\
\
And the Phoenix Police Department bought hundreds of new Fruit of the
Loom T-shirts and had them custom silk-screened with Homeland Security
money to read: \"I Survived a WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction) Drill!\"
The T-shirts were partly a thank-you to volunteers, officials said, and
partly a safety measure to identify participants.

### Tightening spending

The 2006 grant guidelines for the State Homeland Security Grant Program
require that states follow through on the promise to send funds to more
at-risk areas. In some cases, a disproportionate amount of money has
gone to rural areas, unlikely to be targeted by terrorists, Homeland
Security analysts say.\
\
In 2005, Phoenix received \$1.1 million under the program, or roughly 78
cents a person through the program. Springerville, a town of 4,000
southeast of Flagstaff, received \$155,000, about \$38.75 per person.\
\
\"Are we going to have a 9/11 in Springerville, Arizona? No,\" said Max
Sadler, the town\'s fire chief. \"But we do have a major highway, and we
still have a lot of other things that go through this town. I\'m not
asking for a million and half dollars for a hazardous-materials
first-responder team.\
\
\"Is there waste? Yeah, I\'m sure there is somewhere. It\'s just the
American way, I guess. You see it all the time, and it makes it bad for
people who are trying to survive.\"\
\
Arizona is struggling to keep its share of Homeland Security grant
funding, which has decreased by roughly one-third in the past two years.
Navarrette said the regional advisory committees set up in 2004 are
helping to ensure that any new purchases are in line with the state\'s
overall security strategy.\
\
\"For this next year, we need to get away from buying gizmos,\" he said.
\"We bought a lot of equipment, a lot of good equipment that\'s been
necessary. But I think we\'re to the point now we need to focus more on
sustainability, more on training, more on programmatic goals.\"\
\
Carafano said the public should decide where it wants money to go in the
struggle to protect the country against a terrorist attack and prepare
for natural disasters.\
\
\"The point is that people need to take a deep breath and figure out
what they want their federal government to spend their money on,\" he
said. \"The fact is that every dollar that we spend buying a fire truck,
or a hose or a TV camera for somebody is a dollar we could have spent on
preventing terrorist acts to begin with.\"