a

GAO

United States Government Accountability Office

Report to the Chairman, Committee on 

Government Reform, House of 

Representatives

September 2004 HOMELAND 

SECURITY

Effective Regional 

Coordination Can 

Enhance Emergency 

Preparedness

GAO-04-1009
www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-04-1009.

To view the full product, including the scope 

and methodology, click on the link above. 

For more information, contact Patricia A. 

Dalton at (202) 512-6806 or 

daltonp@gao.gov. 

Highlights of GAO-04-1009, a report to 

Chairman, Committee on Government 

Reform, House of Representatives 

September 2004

HOMELAND SECURITY

Effective Regional Coordination Can 

Enhance Emergency Preparedness 

As requested, GAO reviewed 

coordination practices in various 

metropolitan areas to find regional 

programs with lessons learned that 

could be applied in the National 

Capital Region (NCR) and 

elsewhere. We addressed the 

following questions: 

(1) In selected metropolitan areas, 

what factors enhance regional 

coordination? 

(2) What features of federal 

programs enhance regional 

emergency preparedness 

coordination? 

(3) How does regional 

coordination for emergency 

preparedness in the NCR 

incorporate features from 

other areas and federal 

programs? 

For detailed analysis, we selected 

Dallas, Los Angeles, New York, 

Philadelphia, San Francisco, and 

Tampa-St. Petersburg—considered 

by DHS to be high-threat urban 

areas because of their population 

and critical infrastructure, among 

other factors. We also analyzed 

regional coordination in the 

planning and implementation of 

transportation and environmental 

programs because of their history 

of requiring such collaboration. 

DHS and the District of Columbia’s 

Deputy Mayor/City Administrator 

generally agreed with our report 

regarding the characteristics of 

regional coordination and that the 

NCR’s Urban Area Security 

Initiative governance structure was 

relatively advanced. 

GAO’s analysis of federal program documents and plans, and interviews with 

federal, state, and local officials in six metropolitan areas revealed several 

factors that characterize effective regional coordination of federally 

supported efforts. Regional coordination efforts are enhanced by the 

presence of a collaborative regional organization that includes 

representation from many different jurisdictions and different disciplines. 

Also, when regional civic and political traditions foster interjurisdictional 

coordination, flexibility in the membership and geographic area of the 

regional organization can enhance collaborative activities. In addition, a 

comprehensive strategic plan with measurable goals and objectives helps 

focus resources and efforts to address problems. Finally, funding regional 

organizations provides incentives for their collaborative planning activities. 

The federal government can provide support for regional coordination. In 

particular, through its grant design and requirements, it encourages 

structures and practices associated with effective regional efforts. For 

example, federal transportation law requires the existence of metropolitan 

planning organizations (MPO) before transportation funds can be awarded. 

Some programs have recognized the importance of flexibility by allowing 

local jurisdictions to organize themselves in ways consistent with their 

regional environment. For example, the DHS’ Urban Area Security Initiative 

(UASI) grant program allowed three San Francisco Bay programs to pool 

some of their grant resources to establish a regionwide UASI effort. 

Moreover, some federal grants require regional organizations to prepare 

plans that guide funding decisions. Transportation law, for example, 

requires MPOs to prepare transportation improvement plans as a condition 

for awards. Finally, federal financial support can facilitate coordination 

activities. Several programs, including the MPO program, provide such 

support. 

The characteristics of effective regional coordination we identified are 

applicable to the NCR’s efforts to coordinate emergency preparedness. If 

implemented as planned and as observed in its early stage, the NCR’s UASI 

program would include a collaborative regional organization. However, as 

we reported in May 2004, the NCR did not include a full array of homeland 

security grants in its planning. The NCR’s UASI program plans to address 

those issues by identifying non-UASI funding sources and collecting 

information about the funding allocations, expenditures, and purposes, as 

well as data on spending by NCR jurisdiction. DHS and UASI officials 

believe these data will enable program managers to avoid duplication of 

expenditures and to better utilize program funds. 

Regional approaches are changing quickly, and the nation is still in the early 

stages of building regional institutions across the country to deal with 

homeland security issues. Those important developments warrant 

continued congressional monitoring and oversight. 
Page i GAO-04-1009 Homeland Security

Contents

Letter 1

Results in Brief 3

Background 8

Collaborative Organizations and Strategic Planning Foster Regional 

Coordination 11

Some Federal Programs Contain Incentives for Regional 

Coordination 19

NCR Emergency Preparedness Effort Can Benefit from 

Comprehensive Planning and Application of Standards 23

Concluding Observations 26

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation 27

Appendixes

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology 30

Appendix II: Comments from the Department of Homeland Security 33

Appendix III: Comments from the Deputy Mayor and City Administrator, 

District of Columbia 36

Appendix IV: GAO Contacts and Acknowledgments 40

GAO Contacts 40

Acknowledgments 40
Contents

Page ii GAO-04-1009 Homeland Security

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reproduce this material separately.

Abbreviations

CAOs Chief Administrative Officers' Committee 

D.C. District of Columbia

DHS U.S. Department of Homeland Security

DOT U.S. Department of Transportation

EPA U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

EPC Emergency Preparedness Council

GAO Government Accountability Office

MPO Metropolitan Planning Organization

MWCOG Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments

NAPA National Academy of Public Administration

NCR National Capital Region

NCTCOG North Central Texas Council of Governments 

ONCRC DHS' Office of National Capital Region Coordination

SPG Senior Policy Group

TBEP Tampa Bay Estuary Program

TEW Terrorism Early Warning Group

TRANSCOM Transportation Operations Coordinating Committee 

UASI Urban Areas Security Initiative
Page 1 GAO-04-1009 Homeland Security

United States Government Accountability Office

Washington, D.C. 20548

A

September 15, 2004 Letr

The Honorable Tom Davis

Chairman

Committee on Government Reform

House of Representatives

Dear Mr. Chairman:

Particularly since the events of September 11, 2001, regional approaches 

have been recognized as a key way to address the threat of terrorism. In 

many urban areas, the threat of terror is regionwide, and resources for 

responding to that threat are distributed among many jurisdictions. 

Therefore, the most effective responses are coordinated and planned 

across the region, rather than being jurisdiction-specific. The complexity 

of multijurisdictional urban areas—such as the National Capital Region 

(NCR), composed of Washington, D.C., and numerous surrounding 

jurisdictions in Maryland and Virginia—with a range of potential terrorism 

targets, presents significant challenges to coordinating the development of 

effective homeland security programs.1

Following the initial allocation of billions of dollars to first responders after 

September 11, 2001, the need to address the threat of terrorism from a 

regional perspective began to be a focus of federal policy. The Department 

of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) 

allocated hundreds of millions of dollars to urban areas that were 

considered to be at a high risk for a terror attack. In fiscal year 2003, DHS 

granted seven high-threat metropolitan regions2

 UASI funding to address 

the unique needs of emergency preparedness and response in large urban 

areas. Each of these areas covered multiple city/county jurisdictions, and 

two (New York City and the NCR) covered more than one state. In May 

2003 DHS announced an additional total of $500 million to augment the 

1

 Section 882 of the Homeland Security Act of 2002 (Pub. L. No. 107-296 (Nov. 25, 2002)) 

incorporates the definition of the NCR from 10 U.S.C. 2674(f)(2) as the geographic area 

consisting of the District of Columbia; Montgomery and Prince George’s Counties in 

Maryland; Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun, and Prince William Counties and the City of 

Alexandria in Virginia; and all cities and other units of government within those 

jurisdictions. 

2

 In addition to the NCR, the Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, and 

Seattle areas were designated as high-risk urban areas during the first round of UASI 

funding in fiscal year 2003.
Page 2 GAO-04-1009 Homeland Security

original UASI areas’ funding and provide funding for 23 more areas. Fiscal 

year 2004 funding was announced November 2003 to continue the thirty 

2003 UASI programs and to fund an additional 20 areas. 

In May 2004, we reported on the management by NCR jurisdictions and the 

DHS’ Office of National Capital Region Coordination (ONCRC) of 

approximately $340 million in first responder grants during fiscal years 

2002 and 2003.3

 We found that managers of first response agencies—police 

and fire, for example—as well as federal and state emergency 

preparedness agencies did not have national preparedness standards to 

assess existing first responder capabilities, gaps in those capabilities, and 

progress made in achieving performance goals. Similarly, those agencies 

had no regionwide, comprehensive, strategic plan for establishing first 

responder preparedness goals, needs, and priorities. Finally, the agencies 

had no consolidated, readily available source of information on (1) the 

amount of first responder grants available to each jurisdiction, (2) budget 

plans or criteria used to determine spending priorities, and (3) data on 

funds expended from the various sources. Without these components, the 

federal grants were difficult to manage in a way that enabled first response 

agencies to pursue and monitor goals and objectives. 

As you requested, we followed up our NCR work with this review of 

coordination practices in various other metropolitan areas around the 

nation, with an emphasis on identifying characteristics of successful 

regional coordination that could be applied in the NCR and elsewhere. We 

agreed to address the following questions:

1. In selected metropolitan areas, what factors enhance regional 

coordination?

2. What features of federal programs enhance regional emergency 

preparedness coordination?

3. How does regional coordination for emergency preparedness in the 

NCR incorporate features from other metropolitan areas and federal 

programs?

3

 GAO, Homeland Security: Management of First Responder Grants in the National 

Capital Region Reflects the Need for Coordinated Planning and Performance Goals, GAO04-433 (Washington, D.C.: May 28, 2004).
Page 3 GAO-04-1009 Homeland Security

We selected six metropolitan areas in which to examine regional 

coordination: Dallas-Fort Worth, Los Angeles, New York City, Philadelphia, 

the San Francisco Bay Area, and Tampa-St. Petersburg. We selected these 

locations based on such factors as their vulnerability to terror events 

indicated by the presence of potential targets, such as critical 

infrastructure and important federal and commercial facilities. We also 

selected metropolitan areas with a large number of regional jurisdictions 

that indicated a level of complexity in approaching emergency 

preparedness from a regional perspective. Within each area, we examined 

certain federal programs-–such as metropolitan planning organizations 

(MPO), regional estuary preservation efforts, and UASI, which require 

regional coordination. We included in our analysis nonemergency 

preparedness programs, such as transportation planning (involving MPOs) 

that have existed for decades and have developed their own regional 

organizations and planning practices. Examining such programs can 

provide insights into how to structure regional homeland security efforts, 

which are relatively new, in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terror 

attacks. 

We met with and obtained documentation from mayors’ offices, city and/or 

county offices of emergency management, state emergency management 

offices, regional planning councils, or MPOs; other regional bodies, offices, 

and task forces; and program directors for selected programs that require 

coordination. We also contacted officials of the responsible federal 

agencies, including DHS, the Department of Transportation (DOT), and the 

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). We reviewed relevant reports, 

studies, and guidelines on homeland security and emergency preparedness. 

We conducted our review from July 2003 to September 2004 in accordance 

with generally accepted government auditing standards. See appendix I for 

more details on our scope and methodology.

Results in Brief Regionally coordinated and planned programs have existed in such fields 

as transportation and environmental planning for decades. For example, 

the metropolitan transportation planning model came into being in 

response to federal transportation planning requirements in the 1960s. In 

contrast, homeland security is a relatively new public policy field, emerging 

in prominence after the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. According to 

our work in six metropolitan areas, several factors characterize effective 

regional coordination in those regions. 
Page 4 GAO-04-1009 Homeland Security

• Regional organizations that include representation from many different 

jurisdictions and diverse stakeholders serve as structured forums for 

these parties to discuss public policy problems and agree on possible 

solutions. These organizations exist in metropolitan regions for a 

variety of purposes—for example, to coordinate transportation planning 

or clean water initiatives. Decisions made collaboratively are likely to 

have broader support than those that are unilateral. For example, 

federal transportation law requires metropolitan planning organizations 

(MPO) with multijurisdictional representation to work together to agree 

on a regional transportation plan and allows the use of federal funding 

for such planning. For example, in the NCR, the Metropolitan 

Washington Council of Governments (MWCOG) promotes collaborative 

transportation decision making by requiring the majority of the area’s 

multijurisdictional board to support a regional transportation 

improvement plan. Agreements on such projects as road improvements 

associated with rebuilding the Woodrow Wilson Bridge were approved 

by the MWCOG Transportation Planning Board and included in the 

transportation plan for federal funding.

• Where regional collaboration is encouraged by the leadership and 

political traditions of state, regional, and local entities, flexibility for 

regional organizations to establish their membership requirements and 

collaborative processes is important. Such flexibility helps regional 

organizations function effectively in the existing political and civic 

environment by allowing them to expand the scope of the collaborative 

activities; under these circumstances, overly prescriptive requirements 

could impede effective coordination. For example, emergency 

preparedness officials in the San Francisco Bay area told us that first 

responder agencies in that area have a longstanding tradition of 

interjurisdictional coordination. However, in our view, in cases where 

state and local traditions do not engender interjurisdictional 

collaboration, more prescriptive requirements regarding regional group 

members, decision-making processes, and planning can establish 

minimum thresholds for those activities and may provide an incentive 

for regional coordination.

• Strategic plans developed by regional organizations can be effective 

tools to focus resources and efforts to address problems. Effective 

plans often contain such features as goals and objectives that are 

measurable and quantifiable. These goals and objectives allow 

problems and planned steps to be defined specifically and progress to 

be measured. For example, according to Tampa Bay Estuary Program 
Page 5 GAO-04-1009 Homeland Security

officials, the involvement of federal, state, and local government 

partners, environmentalists, and the private sector in proposing and 

implementing solutions to cleaning up Tampa Bay ensures agreement on 

technically sound plans that are based on measurable goals and 

objectives. An agreement involving state and local agencies, as well as 

industry, committed these parties to specific actions to achieve those 

goals, including an overall goal of restoring sea grasses to the conditions 

of about 50 years ago. By specifying goals and objectives, plans can also 

give planners and decision makers a structure for allocating funding to 

those goals and objectives. Moreover, the application of standards, 

where existent, can focus the strategic planning process by allowing 

planners to measure the current status (baseline) of performance, 

express measurable goals, and identify any gaps between the baseline 

and goals.4

The federal government can provide support for regional coordination. In 

particular, through its grant design and requirements, the government 

encourages structures and practices associated with effective regional 

efforts. 

• Some federal programs support the existence of regional organizations 

that reach collaborative decisions, and several federal programs require 

the grantee to establish such an organization before it can receive 

federal funds. For example, under federal transportation law, all 

transportation improvement plans must be prepared by MPOs prior to 

the allocation of highway and transit funds. To avoid one party or type 

of party being overrepresented in the regional group or wielding too 

much power, some federal programs define acceptable requirements for 

the group and the associated planning processes. 

• Some federal grants allow local jurisdictions the flexibility to organize 

themselves in ways consistent with their regional environment. For 

example, in fiscal year 2003, the Dallas UASI region as defined by DHS 

included the City of Dallas and its contiguous counties, but not Tarrant 

County, Texas. Many regional, state, and city officials felt that Tarrant 

County should be included in the UASI planning. To address this issue, 

the state of Texas provided funding to Tarrant County from the 20 

4

 Preparedness standards include functional standards for equipment, such as personal 

protection suits; performance standards, such as the number of persons per hour that could 

be decontaminated after a chemical attack; and best practice benchmarks, if applicable.
Page 6 GAO-04-1009 Homeland Security

percent of UASI funding that was not passed through to the City of 

Dallas. On the other hand, if the regional environment is not friendly to 

collaboration, then federal grantor agencies can specify minimum 

requirements for a regional organization and procedures that elicit 

collaborative decisions. 

• Some grants require a strategic plan as a precondition for receiving 

federal funds, but to be effective the plans should include measurable 

goals and objectives. In addition, clear standards help to guide the 

progress toward measurable objectives. For example, MPOs must show 

that metropolitan transportation plans and programs conform to the 

goals of the state (air quality) implementation plan for the region. 

Reducing transportation emissions in the metropolitan planning process 

is usually achieved by a combination of new construction, system 

improvements, and demand reduction measures. 

• We also found that federal funding targeted at collaborative regional 

groups can encourage regional coordination. For example, federal 

transportation funds pay for the coordination activities of MPOs. 

Our observations about regional coordination in the implementation of 

federal programs in metropolitan areas we visited are applicable to the 

efforts to coordinate homeland security efforts in the NCR. Based on 

planning documents obtained from officials of the NCR’s regional UASI 

governance structure and observations of the early stages of the program,5

the region’s UASI program would have some elements of successful 

regional coordination, if the plans were fully implemented. For example, 

the NCR is beginning to use regional working groups—the Emergency 

Preparedness Council and the Chief Administrative Officers Committee, 

among others—to bring stakeholders together to agree upon goals and to 

consider funding for regional emergency preparedness. However, at the 

time of our May 2004 report, the NCR had not applied this regional 

coordination structure and plans to the full array of federal homeland 

5

 According to current plans, the NCR’s UASI governance structure includes the Emergency 

Preparedness Council (EPC) and Chief Administrative Officers (CAO) Committee, and the 

Senior Policy Group (SPG). The EPC contains representation from various first response 

disciplines, several regional jurisdictions, the private sector, and the nonprofit sector, 

among others. The CAOs represent the city and town managers and county executives of 

the 19 jurisdictions. The SPG represents the governors of Maryland and Virginia, the mayor 

of Washington, D.C., and the Department of Homeland Security and has final budget 

authority over UASI-related emergency preparedness projects for the NCR.
Page 7 GAO-04-1009 Homeland Security

security grants, totaling about $340 million. Moreover, the regional UASI 

plan would not be based on any preparedness standards. In commenting 

on a draft of this report and as discussed at a September 1, 2004, meeting of 

the UASI Senior Policy Group and Chief Administrative Officers, DHS 

noted that the governance structure is in place and being used to reach 

decisions for homeland security programs in the region, including a 

broadening of the UASI decision-making process to consider funding 

sources other than UASI. The governance structure is developing 

information, including a centralized database to be implemented fully by 

2005, that would provide information on non-UASI emergency 

preparedness funds available, allocated, and expended; the reasons for 

their allocations; and to which jurisdictions they were distributed. Having 

these data would help the UASI governance structure avoid funding 

duplications and leverage UASI funds to extend preparedness efforts to the 

entire region. 

In summary, the federal government can encourage regional coordination 

through its grant programs. Regional organization structures, flexibility to 

account for local conditions, and strategic planning are key characteristics 

of regional coordination. Given the important role that regional planning 

and governance can play in improving national preparedness, these 

developments warrant continuing congressional oversight. 

We provided a draft of this report to DHS and officials of the NCR’s UASI 

governance structure for their review and comment. According to DHS, 

the report contains information that will be valuable to communities across 

the country as DHS encourages regional coordination and capability 

building. DHS stated, however, that the governance structure is currently 

active in the NCR—not proposed or interim—and is acting to enhance 

emergency preparedness decision making and planning in the region. As 

appropriate, we added information in our report to reflect these 

refinements to the NCR’s governance structure. The Deputy Mayor/City 

Administrator, Washington, D.C., also provided comments. Similar to DHS, 

he stated that the NCR’s governance structure reflected the building of a 

great deal of the foundation for meeting the domestic preparedness 

challenges that affect the area. In addition, he said that the NCR is unique 

compared to the six metropolitan areas we chose for detailed analysis 

because only the NCR (1) involves two states and a governmental entity 

that combines state and local functions; (2) contains monuments and 

memorials that are the most visible symbols of our national strength and 

patriotism; and (3) is the seat of the federal government, creating a 

partnership between the national government and NCR state and local 
Page 8 GAO-04-1009 Homeland Security

governments. While we agree that the NCR is an important and unique 

urban area, the areas we chose for detailed analysis contain comparable 

features. 

The Deputy Mayor/City Administrator also stated that the National Estuary 

Program incorporates clean water standards and scientific solutions to 

accomplish clean water. He stated that the federal homeland security 

strategies and plans are not based on proven standards and solutions. 

Hence, he concluded that the estuary program is not comparable with 

federal homeland security strategies and plans. We agree that the National 

Estuary Program is based on existing standards and solutions; indeed, our 

report notes that for the most part, standards are not yet extant for 

homeland security efforts. However, the application of standards in the 

planning and implementation of the National Estuary Program is the very 

reason we chose to explore and elaborate upon it. Our report notes that 

the preparation and implementation of plans that have goals and objectives 

that are actionable and measurable—frequently based on the application of 

standards—is a key factor in the success of regionally coordinated 

programs. 

Background Historically, the American governance system, divided into federal, state, 

and local jurisdictions, does not provide a natural vehicle for addressing 

public policy issues from a regional, multijurisdictional perspective. The 

autonomy of local jurisdictions and competing priorities within and among 

them can make regional coordination difficult. Efforts that seek to 

overcome these challenges to coordinate regionally must take into account 

the different operational structures and civic traditions of states and 

municipalities. For example, states differ in their relationship to local 

governments and their promotion of regional infrastructures. Local 

municipalities differ in their history of multijurisdiction cooperation. Some 

local jurisdictions have histories of mutual aid agreements and working 

together, while in other regions federal homeland security programs may 

be bringing partners together across jurisdictions to conduct planning 

efforts for the first time. 

As used in this report, regional coordination refers to the use of 

governmental resources in a complementary way toward goals and 

objectives that are mutually agreed upon by various stakeholders in a 

region. Regional coordination can also help to overcome the fragmented 

nature of federal programs and grants available to state and local entities. 

Successful coordination occurs not only vertically among federal, state, 
Page 9 GAO-04-1009 Homeland Security

and local governments but also horizontally within regions. The effective 

alignment of resources for the security of communities could require 

planning across jurisdictional boundaries; neighboring jurisdictions may be 

affected by an emergency situation in many potential ways, from 

implementation of mutual aid agreements, to accepting evacuated 

residents, to traffic disruptions. 

Our work has previously noted the concerns of state and local governments 

about fragmented federal grant programs with burdensome application 

processes that are complicated by the inconsistency across programs.6

 

State and local governments manage multiple funding sources for distinct 

but often similar purposes. For instance, GAO identified 25 emergency 

preparedness programs that provided funding to the NCR.7

 The short 

history of regional coordination for homeland security is characterized by 

attempts of federal, state, and local governments to overcome a fragmented 

federal grant system and local jurisdictional barriers to assess needs, fill 

gaps, and plan for effective prevention and emergency response. 

GAO has consistently called for the development of a truly national, rather 

than purely federal, strategy.8

 For example, in testimony given in 2003, 

GAO highlighted multiple barriers to addressing one basic area of 

preparedness—interoperable communications systems—including the lack 

of effective, collaborative, interdisciplinary, and intergovernmental 

planning.9

 Another GAO study of bioterrorism preparedness found that 

although progress had been made in local planning, regional planning 

involving multiple municipalities, counties, or jurisdictions in neighboring 

6

 GAO, Combating Terrorism: Intergovernmental Cooperation in the Development of a 

National Strategy to Enhance State and Local Preparedness, GAO-02-550T (Washington, 

D.C.: Apr. 2, 2002).

7

 GAO, Homeland Security: Management of First Responder Grants in the National 

Capital Region Reflects the Need for Coordinated Planning and Performance Goals, GAO04-433 (Washington, D.C.: May 28, 2004).

8

 See GAO-02-550T and GAO, National Preparedness: Integration of Federal, State, Local, 

and Private Sector Efforts Is Critical to an Effective National Strategy for Homeland 

Security, GAO-02-621T (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 11, 2002). 

9

 GAO, Homeland Security: Challenges in Achieving Interoperable Communications for 

First Responders, GAO-04-231T (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 6, 2003).
Page 10 GAO-04-1009 Homeland Security

states lagged.10 In July 2002, the President issued the National Strategy for 

Homeland Security, which emphasized a shared responsibility for security 

involving close cooperation among all levels of government. To enhance 

emergency preparedness, the strategy called for systems that avoid 

duplication and increase coordination to better align public and private 

resources for homeland security. 

With the creation of DHS and the development of the National Strategy, the 

federal government has developed several programs and provided financial 

assistance to improve state and local governments’ ability to prevent and 

respond to the threat of terrorism. These grant programs demonstrate a 

variety of approaches. For example, all states are eligible for the State 

Homeland Security Grant Program to update and implement their state 

Homeland Security Strategy. The UASI provides support to metropolitan 

areas designated by DHS as high-threat areas. The funds are distributed 

based on a formula that considers critical infrastructure, population 

density, assessment of threats, and other factors. 

DHS’ UASI program combines the elements of threat-based assessment and 

funding with regional planning. UASI programs must create a working 

group with representation from the region that will be responsible for 

coordinating development and implementation of program elements. 

Before funding can be distributed, DHS also requires each UASI program to 

develop and submit a strategic plan that outlines the region’s common 

goals, objectives, and steps for implementation. The strategy is intended to 

provide each program with direction for enhancing regional capability and 

capacity to prevent and reduce vulnerability. UASI funds can be used to 

purchase a range of goods and services to enhance the preparedness of 

first responders, including approved equipment, preparedness plans, 

exercises, and training. 

Other federal programs that require regional coordination may be 

instructive for homeland security. In the area of transportation planning, 

the federal government has required states to establish MPOs to address 

regional transportation impact and needs. Established in response to 

federal planning requirements dating back to 1962, MPOs are 

multijurisdictional regional bodies composed of local elected officials and 

public agency representatives who review and approve transportation 

10 GAO, Bioterrorism: Preparedness Varied across State and Local Jurisdictions, GAO-03-

373 (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 7, 2003).
Page 11 GAO-04-1009 Homeland Security

investments in metropolitan areas as a condition for federal highway and 

transit funding. In the area of environmental planning, the Clean Water Act 

directs EPA to develop plans for attaining or maintaining water quality in 

an estuary system. Congress established EPA’s National Estuary Program 

in 1987 to improve the quality of estuaries of national importance. To be 

selected for the National Estuary Program, estuaries must be nominated by 

state governors and demonstrate existing regional infrastructure with the 

capacity to fulfill the requirements of the Clean Water Act. 

Collaborative 

Organizations and 

Strategic Planning 

Foster Regional 

Coordination

As corroborated by officials with whom we met, collaborative regional 

organizations that include a wide range of stakeholders from multiple 

jurisdictions and disciplines contribute to successful regional coordination 

for a variety of public programs. In addition, effective strategic planning 

that includes measurable objectives appropriately aligned with resources is 

necessary for fostering regional approaches that enhance emergency 

preparedness and achieve other public goals. The application of 

standards, where existent, to the planning process can help to define and 

measure a baseline status (e.g., a baseline of preparedness), a desired level 

of performance (e.g., preparedness levels that are to be achieved), and a 

gap between the baseline and desired level that would be the focus of a 

program’s efforts.

Regional Organizations and 

Collaborative Decisionmaking Process Support 

Effective Coordination

When regional organizations are structured so that they include a wide 

range of stakeholders and promote collaborative decision making, they can 

advance regional coordination by creating a forum for those stakeholders 

to build rapport, solve problems regarding issues of mutual concern, and 

engage in information and resource sharing. Collaborative problem 

identification and problem solving promotes cooperation in planning 

efforts to address public problems. Collaborative decision making can 

encourage decisions that preclude one party from dominating decisions 

about problems, potential solutions, programmatic goals and objectives, 

and funding allocations; instead, such decisions are made with input from 

many. Emergency management, transportation, and estuary program 

officials reported that regional organizations enabled their regions to work 

together on a variety of emergency preparedness, environmental, and 

transportation issues. In the emergency preparedness area, the UASI 

working group in the NCR has achieved multijurisdictional agreement on 

regional plans that contain 21 specific efforts to be funded in equipment, 

training, exercises, and planning to improve the NCR’s preparedness 
Page 12 GAO-04-1009 Homeland Security

regionwide, not just to benefit individual jurisdictions. Also in the NCR, the 

Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments promotes collaborative 

transportation decision making by requiring the majority of the area’s 

multijurisdictional transportation planning board to support a 

transportation plan that specifies projects to be funded that are intended to 

address the region’s traffic congestion and air quality problems—seen as 

being among the worst in the nation. The region’s long-range 

transportation improvement plan contained agreements on such projects 

as road improvements associated with rebuilding the Woodrow Wilson 

Bridge. Similarly, the Tampa Bay Estuary Program has restored a net 

increase of about 850 acres of sea grasses on the Tampa Bay seabed since 

the program’s inception, or about 6 percent of the 14,000 total acreage to be 

restored.

Collaborative decisions made by many stakeholders represented in 

regional organizations can formulate mutually agreed-upon responses to 

public policy problems. The collaborative experiences we observed in the 

Dallas-Fort Worth area provided examples of how regional organizations 

can aid in solving problems. For example, the Dallas-Fort Worth’s Regional 

Emergency Managers Group has served as a forum for the region’s 

emergency preparedness officials to analyze, plan for, and make decisions 

about various regional initiatives, such as improving interjurisdictional 

communications interoperability. Within this group, an associated 

subgroup explored technical issues related to communications 

interoperability. The Regional Emergency Managers Group evaluated 

technology options and is creating a regional purchasing plan to facilitate 

the purchase of interoperable communications equipment. Without 

interoperable radios and other communications equipment, police and fire 

departments in different jurisdictions cannot easily communicate when 

responding to an emergency. 

Collaborative efforts through regional organizations can also result in the 

integration of plans and programs that are implemented by individual 

jurisdictions. In Dallas-Fort Worth, local first responder agencies built 

upon the established working relationships and their trust of the local 

council of governments to enhance regional coordination of homeland 

security. For example, the City of Dallas contracted with the North Central 

Texas Council of Governments (NCTCOG) to facilitate the development of 

the UASI strategy. In addition, most of the jurisdictional and private sector 

stakeholders had their own emergency preparedness plans that were not 

integrated. Acting upon a request from local officials, NCTCOG initiated a 

process to coordinate and integrate these various plans that reflected the 
Page 13 GAO-04-1009 Homeland Security

NCTCOG’s reputation as an impartial and fair arbiter. The resulting plan 

identifies the roles of the various first responder agencies across 

jurisdictional boundaries, thereby increasing the police, fire, and 

emergency medical resources that can respond to an emergency. 

Regional organizations can also facilitate coordination by fostering 

information and resource sharing. For example, in response to problems 

coordinating the construction schedules on roads in the New York-New 

Jersey region, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey created the 

Transportation Operations Coordinating Committee (TRANSCOM) in 

1986—a coalition of 18 independent transportation and public safety 

agencies in Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York. TRANSCOM’s 

significance was exhibited on September 11, 2001, when it facilitated 

efforts among member agencies such as the Port Authority, New Jersey 

State Police, New Jersey Transit, New Jersey Department of 

Transportation, and New Jersey Turnpike to reopen a major Manhattan bus 

terminal to transport thousands of people home. 

DHS and state and local emergency management officials have cited the 

Los Angeles Terrorism Early Warning Group (TEW) as an example of an

information-sharing network focused on the prevention of terrorist acts. 

Created in 1996 by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, the 

primary focus of TEW is to provide a coordinated and focused response to 

acts of terrorism based on assessment and dissemination of intelligence 

information. The core team of TEW includes the Los Angeles Sheriff’s 

Department, Los Angeles Police Department, City and County Fire 

Departments, Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, and the 

Federal Bureau of Investigation. Cooperating agencies include about 30 

other agencies representing a number of disciplines, such as emergency 

management, transportation, and criminal justice. As a group, TEW 

monitors trends and assesses threats that could potentially result in 

terrorist attacks within Los Angeles County. Because of its ability to 

develop terror threat information from a variety of sources and disseminate 

it to first response officials throughout a large metropolitan region, DHS is 

encouraging states and local agencies to utilize their federal homeland 

security funding to replicate the Los Angeles TEW model within the 

framework of their UASI plans.
Page 14 GAO-04-1009 Homeland Security

Where Consistent with Civic 

and Political Traditions, 

Flexible Approaches Can 

Enhance Regional 

Organizations

Metropolitan regions differ in their civic and political traditions. Some 

regions have leadership and/or long-running civic and political traditions 

that promote collaborative efforts. For example, according to national 

associations and emergency preparedness officials in the San Francisco 

and Los Angeles areas, fire and emergency services in California 

jurisdictions have longstanding traditions of coordinating and operating 

jointly, across city and county lines. This tradition is expressed through a 

strong mutual aid system. In other regions, however, tradition can work 

against regional collaboration. In one state we visited, metropolitan 

transportation planning was characterized by a practice of having one MPO 

for each county. Officials in the region we visited explained that local 

development patterns in the region traditionally isolated each county from 

the next, but in recent decades the counties’ development had merged as 

new migrants moved into the area. As a result, the county-based planning 

structure may be outdated, because it is based on previously existent 

development patterns. In response to the lack of a regionwide MPO, the 

county-based MPOs have formed a regional MPO alliance that includes 

MPO chairs, representatives from the regional councils of government, and 

the state transportation department.

To function effectively, regional organizations must take into account the

impact of political and civic traditions. In regions where leadership or 

cultural factors encourage collaborative efforts, regional organizations that 

are formed locally, instead of being imposed by federal and state 

government, are more likely to have identified a coherent regional area 

based upon natural boundaries, population, and established mutual aid 

relationships. Where appropriate and considering regional leadership or 

culture, federal or state programs can preserve the benefits of existing, 

locally formed regional organizations by allowing local jurisdictions to 

organize together. The following examples illustrate this point:

• Pennsylvania’s Counterterrorism Planning, Preparedness and Response 

Act of 2002 (Act 227) legally established the state’s nine regional 

counterterrorism task forces to coordinate the activities of county law 

enforcement agencies in addressing terror threats.11 However, in most 

cases, Pennsylvania allowed counties to divide themselves into regions 

11 2002 Pa. Laws 227. This act codified the task forces, which were administratively created 

in 1998.
Page 15 GAO-04-1009 Homeland Security

based upon their natural mutual aid alliances, rather than imposing a 

new organizational boundary.

• In Texas, the Governor requested assistance from regional councils of 

governments to facilitate a variety of collaborative efforts to build 

regional emergency preparedness capacity across the state. 

Specifically, regional councils of governments were able to unite public 

and private stakeholders to develop, maintain, and coordinate regional 

emergency preparedness management plans and actions. While many 

cities, counties, and private sector stakeholders in Dallas-Fort Worth 

had extensive emergency preparedness plans, many of these plans were 

not integrated. The North Central Texas Council of Governments played 

a key role in facilitating emergency preparedness coordination and 

integrating preparedness plans through its efforts to coordinate and 

integrate the emergency preparedness initiatives of the metropolitan 

area. Those efforts culminated in the Regional Emergency Managers 

meeting—a forum through which emergency managers shared 

information, discussed best practices and technology, built rapport, and 

developed mutual aid agreements. At the time of our study, the group 

was continuing to meet on a quarterly basis and is developing a regional 

emergency plan and associated schedule for achieving emergency 

preparedness goals. 

Regional leadership or traditions that are focused on achieving 

collaboration can advance regional coordination by expanding 

collaborative efforts throughout a region. In such cases, allowing regional 

organizations the flexibility to define their geographic areas or membership 

requirements can foster increased degrees of regional coordination. 

However, in our view, in cases where state and local traditions do not 

engender interjurisdictional collaboration, more prescriptive requirements 

regarding group membership, decision-making processes, and planning 

serve as minimum thresholds for those activities. In some cases, leaders 

bring together stakeholders to agree upon common objectives and to act to 

achieve them. Those leaders play an important role in fostering trust 

among partners and facilitating progress. According to a report by the 

National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA), leadership dedicated 

to stakeholder involvement is a critical characteristic of high-performing 

partnerships, second only to achieving results.12 

12 National Academy of Public Administration, Powering the Future: High Performance 

Partnerships (Washington, D.C.: April 2003).
Page 16 GAO-04-1009 Homeland Security

Collaborative leadership contributed to the expansion and success of 

regional coordination efforts we studied in both emergency preparedness 

and transportation programs. For example, emergency managers in the 

San Francisco Bay Area developed the area’s Regional UASI working 

group, recognized by DHS and the State of California as a good example of 

regional coordination. They brought the working group together to discuss 

emergency issues and develop solutions for the entire Bay Area, which 

includes three subregions with individual UASI programs—San Francisco, 

San Jose, and Oakland. While there was no requirement to work 

collaboratively across UASI programs, these emergency management 

leaders took the initiative to establish a regional approach to facilitate 

coordination throughout the area. They created a regionwide group that 

meets for planning, and they obtained funding to implement the UASI 

efforts by combining a portion of the individual UASI program’s funds for 

use in the whole of the San Francisco Bay Area. The group has effectively 

developed a regionwide emergency preparedness strategic plan that 

includes eight goals, such as regional mutual aid exercises and 

communications interoperability.

Comprehensive Strategic 

Planning Based on 

Measurable Objectives and 

Resource Alignment 

Contributes to Regional 

Coordination

The deliberations of regional collaborative entities can result in mutually 

agreed upon problems and solutions. Moreover, strategic plans are a 

valuable tool to articulate goals, objectives, tasks, and measures. By adding 

specificity to more general discussions about problems and solutions, 

strategic plans can help to focus and operationalize efforts to deal with 

identified problems. In addition, standards, if existent, can be applied to 

help measure baseline performance levels (e.g., the existing level of 

preparedness), define measurable goals and objectives, and identify any 

gaps in performance. In other words, the application of standards can give 

measurability and benchmarking to strategic planning and performance 

monitoring. 

Regional organizations’ collaborative efforts can result in achieving mutual 

agreement, expressed in plans, among diverse stakeholders on priority 

problems and on specific steps to be taken to address them. Moreover, the 

goals and objectives in plans allow problems and planned steps to be 

defined specifically and progress to be measured. Two examples follow.

• In the case of the Tampa Bay Estuary Program (TBEP), a regional 

organization’s collaborative efforts identified environmental problems, 

goals, and objectives that were expressed in a comprehensive strategic 

plan. Estuary program officials pointed to the program’s focus on a 
Page 17 GAO-04-1009 Homeland Security

limited number of measurable and achievable restoration goals as key to 

its success, with respect to the strategic planning process. Such 

planning addressed how to restore and recover the Tampa Bay sea grass 

to conditions of 1950 via measurable and actionable goals, objectives, 

and tasks. By specifically defining what could be done in an action plan, 

TBEP involved a wide cross-section of stakeholders, including federal, 

state, and local government partners, local environmental groups, and 

the private sector. Using EPA’s primer dated August 1989, “Saving Bays 

and Estuaries” as a guideline for developing missions and policies, the 

program’s planning component involved a diverse and comprehensive 

set of stakeholders. For example, a technical advisory committee 

proposes technical solutions to the restoration effort; a nitrogen 

mitigation consortium involves local industry in proposing solutions; 

and a management board involves environmental agencies in providing 

advice to the Policy Board—chaired by the Florida Department of 

Environmental Protection and EPA—that approves all major decisions. 

Program officials credited the involvement of scientists and citizens 

from the Tampa Bay region as vital to the process of identifying and 

ranking the Bay’s problems, as well as developing measurable goals and 

objectives that are included in its comprehensive restoration plan. 

Specifically, the strategic plan identifies the restoration of 14,000 acres 

of sea grasses and protection of the remaining sea grasses as a major 

goal and also establishes a nitrogen management strategy (action plan) 

to encourage sea grass recovery. The comprehensive strategic plan and 

nitrogen management strategy include specific and measurable goals by 

reducing nitrogen levels, identifying interim indicators (including water 

clarity and chlorophyll concentrations), as well as monitoring 

mechanisms to measure progress toward goals.

• In the Dallas-Fort Worth area, emergency management officials reported 

that the UASI requirement for a regional emergency preparedness plan 

initiated development of a comprehensive plan for emergency 

preparedness policy guidance and coordination. They noted that 

planning helped the region to prioritize goals and resulted in a 

systematic decision-making process to determine spending for the UASI 

funds. Other UASI areas, including Tampa Bay and Los Angeles, 

reported that the strategic planning process was a driving force in 

streamlining administration of the program. 

Another example of the role of strategic planning with well-defined goals 

and measurable objectives in encouraging regional coordination is the 

MPO’s requirement to develop a realistic transportation plan that includes 
Page 18 GAO-04-1009 Homeland Security

short-term and long-term strategies. According to officials, such planning 

forces stakeholders to determine the relative importance of various 

transportation projects. Federal transportation law requires MPOs to plan 

for projects using a process that considers financial resources that are 

budgetarily constrained, thereby forcing stakeholders to resolve disputes 

and agree on common goals and realistic objectives at the outset. In the 

San Francisco Bay Area, the planning process led to transportation 

projects that served the region as a whole instead of disparate projects in 

different jurisdictions. For example, the regional MPO planned for an 

extension between two rail systems that enhanced regional access to the 

San Francisco Airport with the surrounding area, including San Jose and 

Oakland.

In addition, a strategic plan can be used in making decisions about funds 

and other resources. Funds and resources can be allocated based on the 

goals and objectives of the strategic plan. For example, the NCR’s UASI 

plan aligned $60 million to 21 lines of effort that were categorized in 

functional areas that included equipment, training, exercises, and planning. 

Those projects were linked to eight points contained in a multistate 

agreement. At the same time, to be truly effective strategic planning needs 

to be comprehensive by addressing most of the resources available to 

address a public policy problem. Failure to do so can result in overfunding 

some ongoing efforts, and underfunding or not funding other activities. For 

example, in our May 2004 report on the management of first responder 

grants in the NCR, we found that the UASI planning effort for the NCR 

would have been improved by considering not only the uses of $60 million 

in UASI funds, but also the uses of $280 million in funding from other first 

responder grants.13 While we found no evidence of duplicative purchases, 

consideration of the other $280 million in funds within the framework of 

the UASI plan would have reduced opportunities for excessive 

expenditures in some areas, while gaps remained in other areas. More 

comprehensive planning could have better ensured that funding would 

have been focused on the highest priority emergency preparedness needs 

of the region. The NCR’s UASI governance structure is now taking steps to 

implement more comprehensive planning.

13 GAO-04-433.
Page 19 GAO-04-1009 Homeland Security

Some Federal 

Programs Contain 

Incentives for Regional 

Coordination 

Some federal programs contain features that encourage regional solutions 

by providing incentives for local jurisdictions to join together to obtain 

federal grant funding. A federal grant whose award is conditioned on the 

recipient working through a collaborative regional organization can 

encourage regional coordination. Grant programs can also require the 

regional groups to express their agreements regarding problems and 

solutions by preparing a strategic plan with measurable goals and 

objectives. Such plans can guide grant expenditures. Grant requirements 

that take into account local and regional conditions and histories of 

collaboration by providing appropriate flexibility can further enhance 

regional coordination. Finally, federal financial assistance for coordination 

activities can provide important support. 

Some Federal Requirements 

Support Regional 

Organizations

Federal grantor agencies support the existence of regional organizations by 

requiring the grantee to establish such an organization before receiving 

federal funds. Importantly, such requirements can promote 

interjurisdictional cooperation in areas where civic and political traditions 

work against such cooperation. For example, federal transportation law 

requires an MPO to write metropolitan transportation improvement plans 

before federal highway and transit funds can be allocated.14 Moreover, 

UASI requires a regional working group representing first responder 

agencies and policymakers in a core city, core county, and other local 

jurisdictions to write a regional UASI plan.

In addition, a federal agency may define a collaborative decision-making 

process that fosters wide participation by a variety of stakeholders and 

tries to avoid one party or type of party being overrepresented in the 

regional group or wielding too much power within the group. In that 

regard, a federal program may define minimally acceptable requirements 

for such a group and the planning processes associated with it. For 

example, DHS’ UASI assigns funding to predefined core cities and core 

counties. In addition, in one location that we visited, the working group 

was required to agree unanimously to the UASI regional strategic plan and 

budget, representing a high state of consensus. In another case, federal 

transportation law requires MPOs to be broad-based bodies that include 

representation from elected officials of various jurisdictions in the defined 

14 23 U.S.C. §134.
Page 20 GAO-04-1009 Homeland Security

service area of the MPOs. In addition, MPOs must include the state 

transportation agencies and operators of publicly owned transit services. 

Flexibility in Grant 

Requirements 

Accommodates Regional 

Variations

Federal grant designs can take into account the uniqueness of leadership 

and political traditions at the state, local, and regional levels by allowing 

local jurisdictions the flexibility to pursue working arrangements that can 

facilitate regional coordination. By allowing jurisdictions to identify the 

boundaries of the region, they can take advantage of regional leadership or 

political relationships that can bring additional stakeholders, resources, or 

ideas to the process. For example, in fiscal year 2003, the Dallas UASI 

region as defined by DHS included the City of Dallas and its contiguous 

counties—Collin, Dallas, Denton, Kaufman, and Rockwall. However, many 

regional, state, and city officials felt that Tarrant County also should be 

included in the UASI planning, since Tarrant County includes a large 

portion of the Dallas-Fort Worth population, including the entire city of 

Fort Worth. To address this issue, the state provided funding to Tarrant 

County from the 20 percent of UASI funding that was not passed through to 

the City of Dallas. 

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania also exhibited a commitment to 

regional collaboration when it overlaid the regional Philadelphia UASI area 

onto a preexisting regional task force. Member jurisdictions of that task 

force—five emergency management coordinators from the counties in the 

Southeastern Pennsylvania Regional Task Force—had been working 

together for 5 years. As a result, the UASI program in Philadelphia 

benefited from strong preexisting working relationships. The cordiality 

built up among the UASI task force members fostered relatively coequal 

funding and planning efforts that extended to suburban parties well beyond 

the core city and core county. 

Other locations, however, may not have traditions or leadership that 

encourage interjurisdictional collaboration. For example, in some 

locations, we found power imbalances, as well as political traditions and 

histories of competition that challenged regional coordination. Such 

challenges, for example, have been manifested by one or two jurisdictions 

making decisions about how federal dollars would be spent and how much 

funding other jurisdictions would receive. In such cases, regional 

cooperation might be facilitated by designing grants that require 

representation and collaboration through regional organizations. 
Page 21 GAO-04-1009 Homeland Security

Federal Grant Requirements 

for Comprehensive 

Strategic Planning with 

Measurable Objectives and 

Resource Alignment 

Encourage Effective 

Regional Coordination 

Some federal grant programs require strategic plans as a precondition for 

receiving federal grant dollars to encourage regional coordination, but for 

the plans to be effective they should include measurable objectives and 

corresponding resource alignment. In addition, the application of 

preparedness standards to define the baseline status and goals for regions 

can enhance strategic plans by adding an element of measurability and 

specificity to them.

Our previous study of a number of leading public sector organizations 

shows that strategic plans work most effectively when they contain goals 

and objectives that are measurable and actionable.15 The presence of 

measurable goals and objectives allows program managers to ascertain 

progress being made and required action—such as reallocating funding 

and/or making programmatic changes—needed to meet those goals and 

objectives. For example, in the Tampa Bay Estuary Program, a community 

of state, local government, nonprofit, and commercial stakeholders 

determined four key program goals, as well as mechanisms through which 

to achieve these goals prior to receiving funding. Upon obtaining the 

funding, the program’s management built upon the stakeholders’ support to 

proceed efficiently with the plan. 

As previously noted, the existence and applicability of standards can 

enhance the ability of decision makers to define measurable programmatic 

goals and objectives and enable them to assess and demonstrate progress 

being made. DHS’ recently issued strategic plan makes reference to 

establishing, implementing, and evaluating capabilities through a system of 

national standards. In emergency planning, preparedness standards can 

serve to define the preparedness requirements of an area or jurisdiction, 

the current status of preparedness, and the gap that exists between the 

requirements and current status. Emergency preparedness officials told us 

that when developing their strategic plan, national standards would have 

been helpful to identify gaps and determine appropriate actions to address 

them.

Clear standards help to guide the progress toward measurable objectives. 

For example, MPOs must show that projects identified in transportation 

plans for federal funding do not worsen air quality conditions of the 

15GAO, Comptroller General's Forum: High-Performing Organizations: Metrics, Means, 

and Mechanisms for Achieving High Performance in the 21st Century Public 

Management Environment, GAO-04-343SP (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 13, 2004).
Page 22 GAO-04-1009 Homeland Security

nonattainment16 metropolitan area. Their analysis must demonstrate that 

the total emissions projected for a transportation plan or program are 

within the emission limits established by the State Implementation Plan.17 

Reducing transportation emissions in the metropolitan planning process is 

usually achieved by a combination of new construction, system 

improvements, and demand reduction measures.

Federal Funding for the 

Costs of Coordination 

Supports Regional Efforts 

Some federal grant programs provide regional organizations recurring 

funding for costs associated with regional coordination. The federal 

government sometimes facilitates regional collaboration by paying 

specifically for some of the costs of regional coordination. For example, 

the coordination activities of MPOs are paid in part with federal 

transportation funds. 

Estuary program officials said annual EPA grants allow spending for 

administrative needs and are important for facilitating regional estuary 

efforts. They reported that federal EPA funding, even though a relatively 

small portion of their overall budgets, was important to program 

sustainability, because it is often the only funding available to cover the 

critical operations that enable the rest of the estuary program’s activities to 

take place.

Federal grants also may facilitate regional coordination by enabling 

organizations to use federal grant dollars to leverage partner organizations 

to fund administrative costs. Officials with TRANSCOM in the New YorkNew Jersey region said that federal funding for technical infrastructure and 

maintenance costs enabled them to leverage funding from partner 

jurisdictions for administrative costs. 

16 Nonattainment areas are those that do not meet or previously have not met air quality 

standards for ozone, carbon monoxide, particulate matter, or nitrogen dioxide.

17 States are required by the Clean Air Act to develop State Implementation Plans that 

demonstrate how the designated area will reduce emissions and meet air quality standards.
Page 23 GAO-04-1009 Homeland Security

NCR Emergency 

Preparedness Effort 

Can Benefit from 

Comprehensive 

Planning and 

Application of 

Standards

Our observations about regional coordination in the implementation of 

federal programs in metropolitan areas we visited are applicable to the 

efforts to coordinate homeland security in the NCR. Importantly, DHS’ 

UASI program allowed the District of Columbia, the State of Maryland, the 

Commonwealth of Virginia, and regional jurisdictions to exercise a high 

degree of flexibility in organizing the UASI governance structure. Based on 

our review early developments, the NCR’s UASI program would exhibit key 

elements of successful regional coordination in UASI-related emergency 

preparedness efforts. As envisioned in the current UASI plans, the NCR’s 

UASI program may be on the way to developing multilayered regional 

coordination structures for the UASI. For example, the NCR is beginning 

to use regional working groups—the Emergency Preparedness Council 

(EPC) and the Chief Administrative Officers Committee (CAO), among 

others—to bring stakeholders together to agree upon goals and to consider 

funding allocations for regional emergency preparedness. However, at the 

time of our May 2004 report, the NCR had not applied this regional 

coordination structure and plans to the full array of federal homeland 

security grants in the region, totaling about $340 million.18 As discussed at 

a September 1, 2004, meeting of the UASI governance structure’s Senior 

Policy Group (SPG) and CAOs committee, the UASI governance structure 

plans to implement comprehensive planning by identifying funding other 

than UASI and developing centralized information on the uses of those 

funds. 

NCR UASI Program Could 

Demonstrate Some 

Elements of Successful 

Regional Coordination

Based on our work in six urban areas, effective regional collaboration is 

characterized by, among other things, the presence of a regional 

organization of many diverse stakeholders that identifies problems and 

possible solutions. The combined outcome of the collaborative interaction 

of those parties is a strategic plan that is made actionable by the presence 

of goals and objectives. As currently envisioned and as being implemented 

in the initial stages, the NCR’s UASI governance structure appears to 

incorporate those features and thereby has the potential to identify, fund, 

and implement emergency preparedness regionwide, rather than having 

those decisions made either by one dominant jurisdiction or in a 

fragmented, jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction manner. 

18 GAO-04-433.
Page 24 GAO-04-1009 Homeland Security

As the UASI program is currently planned and implemented in the early 

stages, the governance structure is bringing together various stakeholders 

to identify regional emergency preparedness projects to be funded with 

UASI funds, and to solicit and obtain funding priorities, other input, and 

concurrence from federal, state, and local governmental stakeholders 

(including first responders); the commercial sector; the not-for-profit 

sector; and the health community, among others. For example, the CAO 

committee uses several technical committees—e.g., police chiefs, fire 

chiefs, public information officers, and health care committees—to identify 

security gaps and make recommendations on how to close them. Those 

recommendations are to be reviewed by the CAO committee, which is 

comprised of the 19 CAOs (in effect, county executives and city and town 

managers) of the Metropolitan Washington Area Council of Government’s 

(MWCOG) jurisdictions, and consolidated, where necessary. In addition, 

the CAOs would discuss preparedness expectations for the region, 

including strategic objectives and commitments to action by Maryland, 

Virginia, and the District of Columbia. The CAOs would obtain UASI 

proposals by asking NCR jurisdictions and technical committees to provide 

their top priorities. According to the CAO Committee’s chairman, those 

priorities would be consolidated by the CAO committee and used to 

generate final, rank-ordered funding priorities for the fiscal year 2004 UASI 

funds. 

Under current plans, the EPC, which serves as the UASI working group, 

would have the authority to approve all funding initiatives. The EPC 

represents the federal, state, and local levels of government, a variety of 

first responder disciplines, and the commercial and not-for-profit sectors, 

among others. It meets to discuss and approve the UASI funding 

recommendations that have been made by the CAO Committee. 

The SPG—representing the Governors of Maryland and Virginia, the Mayor 

of Washington, D.C., and the DHS Office of National Capital Region 

Coordination (ONCRC)---has final budget authority over projects 

discussed, recommended, and approved by the CAOs and EPC. MWCOG 

staff and the CAO Committee’s Chairman do not envision disagreements 

between the different elements of the UASI governance structure, because 

they share membership on the same committees. 
Page 25 GAO-04-1009 Homeland Security

Management of Most 

Emergency Preparedness 

Grants in the NCR Affected 

by Lack of Comprehensive 

Regional Planning and 

Preparedness Standards

In our report and testimony of May and June 2004, respectively, we 

concluded that the NCR efforts to implement an efficient and effective 

regional preparedness approach were hampered by not having a

coordinated strategic plan for enhancing NCR preparedness. Moreover, the 

regional UASI plan would not be based on any performance standards. 

Specifically, the NCR’s UASI plan could not be considered to be a 

comprehensive strategic preparedness plan because it excluded non-UASI 

funds totaling $280 million in fiscal years 2002 and 2003. As we reported, at 

the time of our May 2004 report, there existed no reliable central source of 

data on funds available and expended and the purposes for which they 

were spent.19 Instead, those funds were allocated on a grant-by-grant basis 

within each jurisdiction largely based on requests from first responder and 

emergency management officials. To the extent there was consensus on 

regional goals and knowledge of regional capacities, funds could be 

allocated in a more coherent manner. Moreover, federal emergency 

preparedness grants were often spent by each jurisdiction without 

considering whether assets and resources purchased already existed in 

neighboring jurisdictions and could be shared. Decisions about those 

purchases generally were not based on knowledge of the current level of 

preparedness or requirements to reach a desired preparedness level. 

According to comments provided by DHS and as discussed at a September 

1, 2004, meeting of the UASI governance structures SPG and CAOs 

Committee, the UASI governance structure now plans to address these 

issues by gathering information from Maryland, Virginia, and the District of 

Columbia on funding sources other than UASI, how the funds were 

allocated and for what purposes, and how they were distributed by 

jurisdiction. In that regard, the governance structure’s working group is 

converting hard-copy data on funds available and expended to a centralized 

database that would be fully populated by 2005. This would help the UASI 

governance structure avoid duplication of funding and leverage UASI funds 

to extend preparedness efforts to the entire region. In addition, as stated in 

DHS’ comments on our draft report and as discussed at the September 1, 

2004, meeting of the SPG and CAOs Committee, a committee has been 

assigned to work on an analysis of regional preparedness gaps that would 

consider the local assets that could be applied to closing those gaps. 

Stakeholders at the meeting mentioned that such a gap analysis could be 

based on likely scenarios that would need to be addressed during an 

emergency. 

19 GAO-04-433.
Page 26 GAO-04-1009 Homeland Security

The NCR’s UASI plan sets broad strategic goals of preventing terror 

attacks, reducing the region’s vulnerability to terror, and minimizing 

damages and recovery from any terror attacks that do occur. The plan 

endorses an eight-point agreement signed by Maryland, Virginia, and the 

District of Columbia to achieve those three strategic objectives by focusing 

action on (1) preventing terror; (2) promoting citizen involvement in 

preparedness; (3) working in partnership to implement a coordinated 

decision-making process; (4) implementing emergency protective 

measures; (5) promoting a public/private partnership to protect the 

infrastructure; (6) working to develop a Joint Information System for the 

media; (7) enhancing mutual aid agreements, including dealing with any 

liability issues; and (8) partnering to coordinate plans for terrorism and 

security-related training and exercises across the area. 

Concluding 

Observations

Federal programs frequently rely on regionally coordinated approaches to 

deliver important services to program beneficiaries and clientele. This fact 

is especially important in the relatively young field of homeland security, 

because the urgency of addressing the terror threat calls for effectively and 

efficiently managing the use of federal homeland security grant dollars. 

Based on our work, we have concluded that regional approaches to 

manage federal homeland security dollars help to ensure that those funds 

are spent in a complementary, coordinated fashion that is targeted at 

known security gaps. Our work further shows that regional approaches to 

emergency preparedness and other fields are characterized by several 

broad features that the federal government can encourage, frequently 

through the design and requirements of its grants. These lessons can be 

applied in the NCR and elsewhere to improve the management of federal 

emergency preparedness grant dollars by enlisting the support of a variety 

of stakeholders in identifying and supporting solutions to preparedness 

requirements and targeting the use of scarce resources to address 

preparedness gaps. 

The federal government can encourage effective coordination in its grant 

requirements in four ways:

• First, some federal grants require the existence and operation of a 

regional collaborative organization and establish a minimum threshold 

of regional collaboration by requiring a variety of stakeholders, resulting 

in widespread agreement on what problems should be addressed and 

what steps should be taken. 
Page 27 GAO-04-1009 Homeland Security

• Second, where favorable political and civic conditions exist, some 

federal grants have allowed regional organizations to exercise flexibility 

in how they operate—for example, in establishing their membership 

boundaries. 

• Third, some grants provide minimum thresholds for planning by 

requiring that regional organizations prepare regional strategic plans 

that contain goals and objectives that are specific and measurable. 

Strategic plans provide a focal point for establishing goals and aligning 

resources. The application of standards, where existent, adds a 

measure of precision and measurability to a plan’s goals and objectives.

• Fourth, some grants fund the costs of regional organizations, thereby 

providing additional incentives for localities to collaborate 

interjurisdictionally. 

Regional approaches for homeland security continue to evolve quickly, but 

the nation is still in the early stages of building institutions and processes to 

address emergency preparedness. Also, the federal government is still in 

the early stages of developing preparedness standards to guide local 

initiatives. Based on our work and given the important role that regional 

planning and governance can play in improving national preparedness, 

these developments warrant continued congressional monitoring and 

oversight. As local initiatives continue to evolve and federal guidance 

becomes more definitive, the use of regional structures and plans in 

guiding the allocation and use of all major federal homeland security 

assistance will likely become more important. 

Agency Comments and 

Our Evaluation

We provided a draft of this report to DHS and officials of the NCR’s UASI 

governance structure for their review and comment. DHS commented that 

the report contains information that will be valuable to communities across 

the country as DHS encourages regional coordination and capability 

building. DHS also states that the UASI governance structure is currently 

active and is not proposed or interim. We agree that the governance 

structure is not proposed or interim, and we state in our report that the 

regional coordination activities of the NCR’s UASI governance structure 

have evolved to begin to display many of the characteristics of regional 

coordination. For example, our report reflects information regarding the 

establishment and evolution of structures associated with the UASI 

governance structure, including the Senior Policy Group, the Emergency 

Preparedness Council, and the Chief Administrative Officers Committee. 
Page 28 GAO-04-1009 Homeland Security

DHS also remarked that, as discussed at a September 1, 2004, meeting of 

the UASI Senior Policy Group and Chief Administrative Officers 

Committee, the UASI governance structure will take steps to ensure that 

planned uses of federal emergency preparedness funds consider all funding 

sources, including non-UASI sources. Specifically, the UASI governance 

structure plans to gather information from Maryland, Virginia, and the 

District of Columbia on funding sources other than UASI, how the funds 

were allocated and for what purposes, and how they were distributed by 

jurisdiction. In that regard, the governance structure is converting hardcopy data on funds available and expended to a centralized database that 

would be fully populated by 2005. In response, we added information in 

our report to reflect these refinements to the NCR’s governance structure. 

The Deputy Mayor/City Administrator of Washington, D.C., also provided 

comments. Similar to DHS, he stated that the NCR’s governance structure 

reflected the building of a great deal of the foundation for meeting the 

domestic preparedness challenges that affect the area. He also commented 

that the NCR is unique compared to the six metropolitan areas we chose 

for detailed analysis because only the NCR (1) involves two states and a 

governmental entity that combines state and local functions; (2) contains 

monuments and memorials that are the most visible symbols of our 

national strength and patriotism that, if attacked, would create a 

perception of vulnerability on the part of the federal government; and (3) is 

the seat of the federal government, creating a partnership between the 

national government and state and local governments. While we agree that 

the NCR is an important and unique urban area, the areas we chose for 

detailed analysis contain comparable features. For example, the New York 

City region contains three states and a very large city; that same region, as 

well as other areas we visited, also contains a significant federal presence 

and many buildings and icons that could be at risk for a terror event. 

Moreover, other regions we studied contained extensive partnerships 

between federal, state, and local governments. 

The Deputy Mayor/City Administrator also stated that the National Estuary 

Program incorporates clean water standards and scientific solutions to 

accomplish clean water. He stated that the federal homeland security 

strategies and plans are not based on proven standards and solutions. 

Hence, he concluded that the National Estuary Program is not comparable 

with federal homeland security strategies and plans. We agree that the 

National Estuary Program is based on existing standards and solutions; 

indeed, our report notes that for the most part, standards are not yet extant 

for homeland security efforts. However, the application of standards in the 
Page 29 GAO-04-1009 Homeland Security

planning and implementation of the National Estuary Program is the very 

reason we chose to explore and elaborate upon it. Our report notes that 

the preparation and implementation of plans that have goals and objectives 

that are actionable and measurable—frequently based on the application of 

existing standards—is a key factor in the success of regionally coordinated 

programs. Indeed, our May 2004 report on the management of first 

responder grants in the NCR recommends that the Secretary, DHS, identify 

and address gaps in emergency preparedness and evaluate the 

effectiveness of expenditures in meeting those needs by adapting standards 

and preparedness guidelines based on likely scenarios for the NCR and 

conducting assessments based on them.20 

As agreed with your office, unless you release this report earlier, we will 

not distribute it until 30 days from the date of this letter. At that time, we 

will send copies to relevant congressional committees and subcommittees, 

to the Secretary of Homeland Security, and to other interested parties. We 

will also make copies available to others upon request. In addition, the 

report will be available at no charge on GAO's Web site at 

http://www.gao.gov.

If you or your staff has any questions about this report, please contact me 

at 202-512-6806. Key contributors to this report are listed in appendix IV.

Sincerely yours,

Patricia A. Dalton

Director, Strategic Issues 

20 GAO-04-433.
Page 30 GAO-04-1009 Homeland Security

Appendix I

Scope and Methodology ApApenednxidexiIs

Our overall goal for this engagement was to identify features of regional 

collaboration in urban areas outside of the National Capital Region (NCR) 

that could be transferred to homeland security efforts in the NCR and 

elsewhere. In pursuit of that overall goal, we met with representatives and 

officials of the National Academy of Public Administration, the Association 

of Metropolitan Planning Organizations, the National Association of 

Regional Councils, the U.S. Department of Transportation, and the U.S. 

Environmental Protection Agency. We asked these parties to recommend 

specific urban areas that, in their view, had significant regional 

coordinative activities that we should examine. We also sought out areas 

that presented challenges for regional coordination through such features 

as having a multitude of jurisdictions within a region, an interstate 

geographic area, and geographic bifurcation characterized by the presence 

of a large body of water. We also obtained information regarding factors—

such as the presence of significant federal and commercial facilities, 

national monuments, critical infrastructure (bridges, tunnels, airports, and 

seaports), population density, and ranking as a high-threat urban area per 

the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Urban Area Security 

Initiative—that indicated a metropolitan area was at risk for a terror event.

Based on these various considerations and recommendations, we 

identified the Dallas-Fort Worth, Los Angeles, San Francisco Bay, New 

York, Philadelphia, and Tampa-St. Petersburg areas as sites meeting one or 

more of these criteria and selected them for a more detailed analysis of 

regional coordination across a variety of federal programs.

We also used information from these parties, along with a review our 

previous work in the area of intergovernmental relations, to identify federal 

programs with regional coordination features that could be useful for 

enhancing regional emergency preparedness coordination. Based on our 

assessment of this information, we selected for examination the 

transportation planning program that utilizes metropolitan planning 

organizations to prepare regional transportation improvement plans and 

related plans to guide the expenditure of federal highway and transit 

dollars. In the area of environmental protection, we selected estuary 

programs in which state agencies; local governments; or other public, 

nonprofit, or private agencies, research institutions, and individuals 

develop programs to protect and restore coastal resources through 

comprehensive planning and joint action. We also selected a homeland 

security program—the Urban Area Security Initiative—that apportions 

domestic preparedness funding for equipment, training, exercises, and 
Appendix I

Scope and Methodology

Page 31 GAO-04-1009 Homeland Security

planning on the basis of a regional plan that is prepared by a regional 

working group.

To meet our first objective of identifying factors of successful regional 

coordination, we met with representatives of regional organizations and 

with federal, state, and local government officials in the areas selected. 

Regional organization representatives that we met with came from regional 

councils, councils of governments, metropolitan planning organizations, air 

quality districts, and estuary programs (where applicable). We also met 

with local and state officials responsible for homeland security and 

emergency preparedness, first responders, and other region-specific 

officials with responsibility for transportation, environmental, or homeland 

security planning. We asked these officials about characteristics of their 

organizations and regional political and civic factors that fostered regional 

coordination. We also obtained, analyzed, and followed up on such 

documentation as: stakeholder lists and the decision-making procedures of 

regional organizations, strategic planning documents, indicators of 

progress made against program goals and objectives, and plans for future 

enhancements of regional coordination.

In pursuit of the second objective of identifying features of federal 

programs that enhance regional emergency preparedness coordination, we 

met with local officials and officials from state emergency management 

agencies at all six case study locations. We also met with federal grantor 

agency officials from the Department of Transportation, the Environmental 

Protection Agency, and DHS’s Office of State and Local Government 

Coordination and Preparedness. We obtained information and examined 

documentation (i.e., program guidance, grant requirements, and reporting 

requirements) about the federal guidelines and objectives for these 

programs. Based on those discussions and documentation examinations, 

we were also able to identify traits and characteristics that provided 

incentives to state, regional, and local governmental, commercial, and notfor-profit entities to collaborate in pursuit of public policy purposes. 

To address our third objective of examining the state of emergency 

preparedness regional coordination in the NCR, we determined current 

NCR regional coordination practices by meeting with officials from the 

Metropolitan Washington Council of Government’s Divisions of 

Transportation, Environment (Air Quality), and Homeland Security and 

Public Safety. We also met with officials from the DHS’s Office of National 

Capital Region Coordination and the Chair of the NCR Chief Administrative 

Officers Committee, and we attended meetings of the NCR Emergency 
Appendix I

Scope and Methodology

Page 32 GAO-04-1009 Homeland Security

Preparedness Council as well as the Senior Policy Group and Chief 

Administrative Officers Committee. We relied on oral and documentary 

evidence from these officials as well as our previous review of the 

management of first responder grants in the NCR to understand the state of 

regional coordination in the NCR as of September 2004.

We conducted our review from July 2003 to September 2004 in accordance 

with generally accepted government auditing standards. 
Page 33 GAO-04-1009 Homeland Security

Appendix II

Comments from the Department of Homeland 

Security ApendxiI
Appendix II

Comments from the Department of Homeland 

Security

Page 34 GAO-04-1009 Homeland Security
Appendix II

Comments from the Department of Homeland 

Security

Page 35 GAO-04-1009 Homeland Security
Page 36 GAO-04-1009 Homeland Security

Appendix III

Comments from the Deputy Mayor and City 

Administrator, District of Columbia ApendxiI

			

		
	

				 	

! 	"	!!	

#	 	$%		%&$'  	

	($	"	)*'$	*%$+			,			-./0	1$$'*$		)			,				.-0			,			)'$+$		20003			,		42025	626780/.	

September 10, 2004

Patricia Dalton

Director, Strategic Issues

U.S. General Accounting Office

Washington, DC 20548

Dear Ms. Dalton:

As the State Administrative Agent (SAA) for the National Capital Region (NCR), I would

like to thank you for forwarding the Draft GAO report, GAO-04-1009, entitled Homeland

Security: Effective Regional Coordination Can Enhance Emergency Preparedness

for review. This draft report was provided to the NCR to obtain advance review and

comment for subjects it discusses. We understand that the report has not been fully

reviewed within GAO and is, therefore subject to revision. In general, the report

describes factors that enhance regional coordination in selected metropolitan areas, the

features of federal programs that enhance regional emergency preparedness

coordination, and how to incorporate regional coordination for emergency preparedness

features from other metropolitan areas into the NCR.

The report selected six metropolitan areas to examine regional coordination. These six

areas were chosen based on their vulnerability to terror events indicated by the

presence of potential targets and the level of complexity as it relates to regional

coordination. Based on the uniqueness of the NCR, it is difficult to compare the NCR

with the six metropolitan areas identified. The following describes the differentiating

factors associated with the NCR:

• The NCR is the only urban area to include two states and a government entity

that serves city, county, state functions in combination (the District of Columbia).

The NCR comprises eight major jurisdictions with a number of additional

municipalities that reside within the boundaries of these eight jurisdictions. In line

with regional homeland security coordination and the guidance set forth by the

Office of Domestic Preparedness (ODP), the NCR adopted a comprehensive

governance structure that includes elected leaders and Chief Administrative

Officers (CAO’s) from each jurisdiction as well as the State Homeland Security

Advisors and Emergency Management Directors that comprise the Senior Policy

Group (SPG).
Appendix III

Comments from the Deputy Mayor and City 

Administrator, District of Columbia

Page 37 GAO-04-1009 Homeland Security

Patricia Dalton

Draft GAO report, GAO-04-1009

September 10, 2004

Page 2

	($	"	)*'$	*%$+			,			-./0	1$$'*$		)			,				.-0			,			)'$+$		20003			,		42025	626780/.	

• The NCR’s monuments and memorials are some of the most visible in the

country and are symbols of national strength and patriotism. A terrorist threat to

anyone of these monuments or memorials is likely to have a major negative

psychological and emotional impact that would be felt throughout the country and

the world. This would create a perception of vulnerability on the part of the

Federal government.

• The NCR is also the seat of the Federal government. A partnership exists

between the NCR state and local governments and the Federal government

entities to coordinate homeland security efforts.

For these reasons, the NCR must be viewed as unique in comparison to other urban

areas designated by the Department of Homeland Security.

The report recognizes the importance of regional organizations to serve as structured

forums for diverse parties to discuss public policy problems and agree on possible

solutions. The report specifically refers to the Metropolitan Washington Council of

Governments (MWCOG) multi-jurisdiction transportation board as an example of such

an organization and forum for collaborative decision making. As discussed in the Office

of National Capital Region’s response to the previous GAO report (GAO-04-433), the

NCR recognizes the importance of such an entity through the formal NCR Review and

Recommendation Process. This process ensures coordination of resources among all

jurisdictions within the NCR and utilizes MWCOG public safety cluster committees (i.e.,

Law Enforcement, Fire Chief, Emergency Manager, etc...) to ensure coordination

throughout the NCR within their particular area of expertise and provide the associated

priorities and needs. This allows the NCR to leverage longstanding tradition of interjurisdictional coordination to provide recommendations through the regional process

and accompanying governance structure. This regional collaborative process has been

encouraged by the leadership of the NCR and has resulted in the NCR Chief

Information Officers (CIO’s) to formulate a MWCOG committee to discuss information

technology issues and develop solutions as it pertains to homeland security.

The report also recognizes the importance of strategic plans developed by regional

organizations can be effective tools to focus resources and efforts to address problems.

Such plans often contain features as goals and objectives that are measurable and

quantifiable. The report specifically refers to the Tampa Bay Estuary Program involving

multiple entities from the private and public sectors (federal and state) to implement

solutions to cleaning up Tampa Bay on technically sound plans that are based on

measurable goals and objectives. The National Estuary program identifies federal

standards that have been established for hazardous substances, through scientific data,

that must be obtained within the water through specific sampling methods to determine

if the Estuary is considered “clean”. These standards are based on remedial

technologies (solution) that currently exist for remediating a source as defined by the

Environmental Protection Agency.
Appendix III

Comments from the Deputy Mayor and City 

Administrator, District of Columbia

Page 38 GAO-04-1009 Homeland Security

Patricia Dalton

Draft GAO report, GAO-04-1009

September 10, 2004

Page 3

	($	"	)*'$	*%$+			,			-./0	1$$'*$		)			,				.-0			,			)'$+$		20003			,		42025	626780/.	

The NCR recognizes the importance of technically sound plans that are based on

measurable goals and objectives when federal standards exist to define the quantifiable

standard to be met with existing remedies or solutions. Such quantifiable federal

standards currently do not exist for defining a level of preparedness or established

remedies or solutions to meet such standards. For the reasons stated above, GAO has

incorrectly compared a well established, federal estuary program with baseline

performance measures with homeland security strategies and plans that do not have

well developed, scientifically tested, baseline performance measures.

That said, the NCR has in place a structure to enable good planning. To assist in future

coordination efforts the SPG has developed a team to assist in administering state and

regional grant funds, and coordination of programmatic planning and response issues.

A detailed outline of theses processes were described with the response to the draft

GAO report, GAO-04-433 entitled: Homeland Security: National Capital Region

Grant Management Issues Reflect the Need for Coordinated Planning and

Performance Standards. The processes described allow for coordinated grants

administration and strategic planning for enhancing the NCR’s preparedness,

performance standards, and a reliable, central source of data on funds available and the

purpose for which they are spent.

The report further recognizes the importance of regional organizations that reach

collaborative decisions prior to receiving grant funds. As the report points out, this

avoids one party or type of party being over-represented in the regional group or

wielding too much power. As stated on page 32 of the report, the NCR utilizes regional

working groups for collaborative decision making, as stated above when referring to the

public safety committees of MWCOG. This was also exemplified in the September 2,

2004 CAO/SPG meeting, which GAO representatives attended to view the NCR’s

collaborative decision-making process at work.

In line with regional homeland security coordination and the guidance set forth by ODP,

the NCR adopted a comprehensive governance structure that includes the CAO's from

each jurisdiction as well as SPG, which is comprised of the homeland security advisor

and the director of the emergency management agency of Maryland, Virginia, and the

District of Columbia. This governance process is required to ensure collaborative

decision making throughout the NCR. The governance structure of the NCR is all

encompassing to include not only the strategic decision makers and the senior leaders

of the region but also the tactical decision makers, the Public Safety department heads,

and their subordinate field experts.

For all the progress made in the NCR to increase preparedness, the NCR realizes, and

your report supports the fact, that we need to continue to implement and enhance our

collaborative decision-making process and continue to redefine our performance goals.

We have already built a great deal of the foundation for meeting the challenges noted in

the report and will continue to work toward meeting our goals.
Appendix III

Comments from the Deputy Mayor and City 

Administrator, District of Columbia

Page 39 GAO-04-1009 Homeland Security

Patricia Dalton

Draft GAO report, GAO-04-1009

September 10, 2004

Page 4

	($	"	)*'$	*%$+			,			-./0	1$$'*$		)			,				.-0			,			)'$+$		20003			,		42025	626780/.	

Your cooperation is appreciated. If you have additional questions, please call Steve

Kral, Administrator for the Office of Homeland Security, at (202) 727-5934.

Sincerely,

Robert C. Bobb

Deputy Mayor / City Administrator
Page 40 GAO-04-1009 Homeland Security

Appendix IV

GAO Contacts and Acknowledgments ApendxiIV

GAO Contacts Patricia A. Dalton, Director, (202) 512-6806

Acknowledgments In addition, Ernie Hazera, Joseph Byrns, Chelsa Kenney, Laurie Latuda, 

Jeanine Lavender, Amy Rosewarne, Susan Sato, and Amelia Shachoy made 

key contributions to this report.

(450263)
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