Report to Congressional Requesters

United States Government Accountability Office

GAO

July 2004 HOMELAND 

SECURITY 

Federal Leadership 

and Intergovernmental 

Cooperation Required 

to Achieve First 

Responder 

Interoperable 

Communications 

GAO-04-740 
www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-04-740.

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and methodology, click on the link above. 

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at (202) 512-8777 or jenkinsw@gao.gov. 

Highlights of GAO-04-740, a report to 

congressional requesters 

July 2004

HOMELAND SECURITY

Federal Leadership and 

Intergovernmental Cooperation Required 

to Achieve First Responder Interoperable 

Communications 

In a November 6, 2003, testimony, GAO said that no one group or level of 

government could “fix” the nation’s interoperable communications 

problems. Success would require effective, collaborative, interdisciplinary, 

and intergovernmental planning. 

The present extent and scope nationwide of public safety wireless 

communication systems’ ability to talk among themselves as necessary and 

authorized has not been determined. Data on current conditions compared 

to needs are necessary to develop plans for improvement and measure 

progress over time. However, the nationwide data needed to do this are not 

currently available. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) intends to 

obtain this information by the year 2005 by means of a nationwide survey. 

However, at the time of our review, DHS had not yet developed its detailed 

plans for conducting this survey and reporting its results. 

The federal government can take a leadership role in support of efforts to 

improve interoperability by developing national requirements and a national 

architecture, developing nationwide databases, and providing technical and 

financial support for state and local efforts to improve interoperability. In 

2001, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) established the federal 

government’s Wireless Public Safety Interoperable Communications 

Program, SAFECOM, to unify efforts to achieve national wireless 

communications interoperability. However, SAFECOM’s authority and 

ability to oversee and coordinate federal and state efforts has been limited 

by its dependence upon other agencies for funding and their willingness to 

cooperate. OMB is currently examining alternative methods to implement 

SAFECOM’s mission. In addition, DHS, where SAFECOM now resides, has 

recently announced it is establishing an Office for Interoperability and 

Compatibility to coordinate the federal response to the problems of 

interoperability in several functions, including wireless communications. 

The exact structure and funding for this office, which will include 

SAFECOM, are still being developed. 

State and local governments can play a large role in developing and 

implementing plans to improve public safety agencies’ interoperable 

communications. State and local governments own most of the physical 

infrastructure of public safety communications systems, and states play a 

central role in managing emergency communications. The Federal 

Communications Commission recognized the central role of states in 

concluding that states should manage the public safety interoperability 

channels in the 700 MHz communications spectrum. States, with broad input 

from local governments, are a logical choice to serve as a foundation for 

interoperability planning because incidents of any level of severity originate 

at the local level with states as the primary source of support. However, 

states are not required to develop interoperability plans, and there is no clear

guidance on what should be included in such plans. 

Lives of first responders and those 

whom they are trying to assist can 

be lost when first responders 

cannot communicate effectively as 

needed. This report addresses 

issues of determining the status of 

interoperable wireless 

communications across the nation, 

and the potential roles that federal, 

state, and local governments can 

play in improving these 

communications. 

GAO recommends that the 

Secretary of DHS (1) continue to 

develop a nationwide database and 

common terminology for public 

safety interoperability 

communications channels; 

(2) assess interoperability in 

specific locations against defined 

requirements; (3) through federal 

grant awards, encourage state 

action to establish and support a 

statewide body to develop and 

implement detailed improvement 

plans; and (4) encourage that grant 

applications be in compliance with 

statewide interoperability plans, 

once they are developed. GAO also 

recommends that the Director of 

OMB work with DHS to review 

SAFECOM’s functions and 

establish a long-term program with 

appropriate authority and funding 

to coordinate interoperability 

efforts across the federal 

government. 

DHS generally agreed with our first 

two recommendations but did not 

specifically address the other 

recommendations to DHS. OMB 

had no comments. 
Page i GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

Letter 1

Results in Brief 3

Background 6

Nature and Scope of Interoperable Communications Problems 

Nationwide Are Unknown and Not Easily Identified and 

Catalogued 12

Federal Role in Interoperability Problems Continues to Evolve 16

State and Local Governments’ Roles in Statewide Interoperability 

Planning and Communications 28

Federal Grant Structure Does Not Fully Support Statewide 

Planning 37

Conclusions 41

Recommendations for Executive Action 43

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation 44

Appendix I Scope and Methodology 47 

Appendix II Cross Border Spectrum Planning 49 

Radio Frequency Spectrum Band Structure 49

Cross Border Planning 50

Cross Border Radio Interference 50

Efforts to Address Cross Border Issues 51

Problems Establishing a Single Public Safety Nationwide 

Frequency Band 52

Appendix III Potential Near-Term Steps to Improve 

Interoperability of Public Safety Wireless 

Communications 53 

Statement of Public Safety Interoperable Communications 

Requirements 53

Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation Program for Existing 

and Emerging Public Safety Communications and 

Interoperability 55

Standards to Improve Interoperable Public Safety Communications 58

Technological Near-Term Actions: Bridging Equipment 59

Technological Near-Term Actions: Technical Assistance and 

Independent Assessments of Alternative Technologies 60

Contents 
Page ii GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

Appendix IV Role of States Continues to Evolve 61 

Challenges in Addressing Communications Interoperability 63

Appendix V Federal Grant Structure Does Not Fully Support 

Interoperability Planning 66 

First Responder Federal Funding Is Structured to Support ShortTerm Rather Than Long-Term Communication Needs 66

Federal Grants Encouraged a “Regional” Approach to Planning, but 

Lacked Requirements for Interoperability Communications 

Plans 71

Grant Submissions and Performance Period Time Frames Also 

Present Challenges to Short- and Long-Term Planning 73

Fragmented First Responder Grant Structure Complicates and 

Limits Coordination at the Federal, State, and Local Levels 75

No Coordinated Federal or State Grant Review Exists to Ensure 

Funds Are Used to Improve Regional or Statewide 

Communications Interoperability 78

No Comprehensive Grant Database Exists that Can Be Used to 

Facilitate Federal Oversight and Coordination of Funding to 

Jurisdictions 80

Appendix VI Comments from the Department of Commerce 81 

Appendix VII Comments from the Department of Homeland 

Security 83 

Appendix VIII GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments 90 

GAO Contacts 90

Staff Acknowledgments 90

GAO Related Products 91 

Bibliography 92 
Page iii GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

Tables 

Table 1: Changes to Funding Sources for Communications 

Interoperability Appropriated for Fiscal Years 2003 and 

2004 69

Table 2: Federal Interoperable Communications Grant Funding 

Sources and Their Eligible Uses 76

Figures 

Figure 1: A Planning Process for Interoperable Communications 8

Figure 2: Washington SIEC’s Structure to Review Local Requests 

for Communications Funds 41

Figure 3: Current Public Safety Spectrum Allocations 49
Page iv GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

Abbreviations 

AGILE Advanced Generation of Interoperability for Law 

 Enforcement 

CAPRAD Computer Assisted Pre-Coordination Resource and 

 Database System 

COPS Office of Community Oriented Policing Service 

DHS Department of Homeland Security 

DOC Department of Commerce 

DOJ Department of Justice 

EMS Emergency Management Services 

FCC Federal Communications Commission 

FEMA Federal Emergency Management Agency 

IWN Integrated Wireless Network 

NTIA National Telecommunications and Information Agency 

NIST National Institute of Standards and Technology 

NIJ National Institute of Justice 

NPSTC National Public Safety Telecommunications Council 

PSWAC Public Safety Wireless Advisory Committee 

NCC Public Safety National Coordination Committee 

NLECTC National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology 

 Center 

NTIA National Telecommunications and Information 

 Administration 

ODP Office for Domestic Preparedness 

OMB Office of Management and Budget 

PSWN Public Safety Wireless Network 

SAFECOM Wireless Public Safety Interoperable Communications 

 Program 

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Page 1 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

July 20, 2004 

The Honorable Tom Davis, Chairman 

Committee on Government Reform 

House of Representatives 

The Honorable Christopher Shays, Chairman 

Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats, 

 and International Relations 

Committee on Government Reform 

House of Representatives 

The Honorable Adam H. Putnam, Chairman 

Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy, 

 Intergovernmental Relations and the Census 

Committee on Government Reform 

House of Representatives 

The inability of first responders—police officers, fire fighters, emergency 

medical service personnel, public health officials, and others—to 

communicate effectively over wireless systems with one another as 

needed during an emergency is a long-standing and widely recognized 

problem in many areas across the country.1

 Reports have shown that when 

first responders cannot communicate effectively as needed, it can literally 

cost lives of both emergency responders and those they are trying to 

assist. Thus, effective communications between and among wireless 

communications systems used by federal, state, and local public safety 

agencies is generally accepted as not only desirable but essential for the 

protection of life and property. Public safety officials generally recognize 

that effective “interoperable” communications is the ability to talk with 

whom they want, when they want, when authorized, but not the ability to 

talk with everyone all of the time. The effective interoperability of wireless 

systems permits a rapid and coordinated response to an emergency 

 1

Our work addressed issues of public safety wireless communications interoperability—

communications that use radio frequency waves, such as cellular telephones and other 

types of wireless radios—instead of telephone wires for transmitting voice and data. We 

did not address interoperability problems that may be found in other homeland security 

functions, such as fire equipment, chem-bio equipment, and information technology. 

United States Government Accountability Office

Washington, DC 20548 
Page 2 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

incident, whether that incident is a “routine” spill from an overturned 

tanker truck or railcar, a natural disaster, or a terrorist attack. 

Various reports have documented a number of barriers to achieving 

interoperable public safety wireless communications, including 

incompatible and aging equipment, limited and fragmented funding, 

fragmented planning and collaboration, and limited equipment standards. 

The federal government has been addressing these issues for over 15 years 

through the attempts of a variety of federal agencies to define the extent of 

the problem and to identify potential solutions. The September 11 attacks 

have resulted in greater public and governmental focus on the role of first 

responders and their capabilities to respond to emergencies, including 

terrorist incidents. In our November 6, 2003, testimony2

 before 

subcommittees of the House Committee on Government Reform we 

identified three principal challenges to improving interoperable 

communications for first responders: (1) clearly identifying and defining 

the problem; (2) establishing national interoperability performance goals 

and standards that balance nationwide standards with the flexibility to 

address differences in state, regional, and local needs and conditions; and 

(3) defining the roles of federal, state, and local governments and other 

entities in addressing interoperability needs. We noted that perhaps the 

fundamental barrier to addressing all of the long-standing problems in 

interoperable communications is the lack of effective, collaborative, 

interdisciplinary, and intergovernmental planning and that no one first 

responder group or governmental agency can successfully “fix” the 

interoperability problems that face our nation. 

In this report, we examine (1) issues in determining the current 

interoperable communications capabilities of first responders nationwide, 

including the scope and severity of interoperable wireless 

communications problems across the nation; (2) the potential roles that 

federal, state, and local governments can play in improving these 

communications, and (3) how the variety of federal grants for state and 

local first responders may encourage or inhibit the assessment of 

interoperable problems and the development of comprehensive plans to 

address those problems. 

 2

See U.S. General Accounting Office, Homeland Security: Challenges in Achieving 

Interoperable Communications for First Responders, GAO 04-231T (Washington, D.C.: 

Nov. 6, 2003). 
Page 3 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

To address these issues, we met with officials of the Office of Management 

and Budget (OMB), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the 

Department of Justice (DOJ), the Department of Commerce (DOC), the 

Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and the Department of 

Defense (DOD), and obtained and reviewed appropriate documentation. 

We also met with officials from the states of California, Florida, Georgia, 

and Washington and local governments within those states. We chose 

these four states because we had information that they were active in 

addressing interoperability issues and because California and Washington 

provided an opportunity to examine specific interoperability issues that 

might be presented by national borders with Mexico and Canada. We 

obtained and reviewed documentation from federal, state, and local 

officials regarding interoperability issues, plans and activities. In addition, 

we attended several meetings of public safety communications officials 

and met with staff of the National Governors Association. See appendix I 

for more details on our objectives, scope, and methodology. In addition, 

information on cross-border communications issues we obtained during 

field visits to the states of California and Washington is included in 

appendix II. We conducted our work from July 2003 through June 2004 in 

accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. 

The current status of wireless interoperable communications across the 

nation—including the current interoperable communications capabilities 

of first responders and the scope and severity of the problems that may 

exist—has not been determined. Although various reports have 

documented the lack of interoperability of public safety first responders 

wireless communications in specific locations, complete and current data 

do not exist documenting the scope and severity of the problem at the 

local, state, interstate, or federal levels across the nation. Accumulating 

these data may be difficult, however, because several problems inhibit 

efforts to identify and define current interoperable communications 

capabilities and future requirements. Current capabilities must be 

measured against a set of requirements for interoperable communications, 

and these requirements vary according to the characteristics of specific 

incidents at specific locations. Who needs to talk to whom, when they 

need to talk, and what set of communications capabilities should be built 

or acquired to satisfy these requirements depends upon whether 

interoperable communications are needed for day-to-day mutual aid, task 

force operations that occur when members of different agencies come 

together to work on a common problem such as the National Capitol 

Region sniper investigation, or major events such as a terrorist attack. 

Requirements for interoperable communications also may change with the 

Results in Brief 
Page 4 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

expanding definition of first responders—from the traditional police, fire, 

and emergency medical providers to include such professions as health 

care providers and other professions—and the evolution of new 

technology. A federal program, the Wireless Public Safety Interoperable 

Communications Program, also known as SAFECOM, has embarked on an 

effort to establish a national baseline of interoperable communications 

capabilities by July 2005, but SAFECOM is still working out the details of 

the study that would be used to develop the baseline. 

The federal government, states, and local governments have important 

roles to play in assessing interoperability needs, gaps in meeting those 

needs, and developing comprehensive plans for closing those gaps. The 

federal government can provide the leadership, long-term commitment, 

and focus to assist state and local governments to meet these goals. For 

example, currently national requirements for interoperable 

communications are incomplete and no national architecture exists, there 

is no single nationwide database of the frequency channels used by public 

safety agencies to coordinate frequencies, and no common nomenclature 

exists for interoperability channels. States alone cannot develop the 

requirements or a national architecture, compile the nationwide frequency 

database, or develop a common nationwide nomenclature. In 2001, the 

Office of Management and Budget (OMB) established SAFECOM to unify 

the federal government’s efforts to help coordinate work at the federal, 

state, local, and tribal levels in order to provide reliable public safety 

communications and achieve national wireless communications 

interoperability. However, SAFECOM was established as an OMB E-Gov 

initiative with a goal of improving interoperable communications within 

18-24 months—a timeline too short for addressing the complex, long-term 

nature of the interoperability problem. In addition, the roles and 

responsibilities of various federal agencies within and outside DHS 

involved in communications interoperability have not been fully defined, 

and SAFECOM’s authority to oversee and coordinate federal and state 

efforts has been limited in part because it has been dependent upon other 

federal agencies for funding and has operated without signed 

memorandums of understanding negotiated with various agencies. DHS, 

where SAFECOM now resides, announced in May 2004 that it is 

establishing an Office for Interoperability and Compatibility to coordinate 

the federal response to the problems of wireless and other functional 

interoperability and compatibility. The office will include SAFECOM, but, 

as of June 2004, its exact structure and funding were still being developed. 

States, with broad input from local governments, can serve as focal points 

for statewide planning to improve interoperable communications. The 
Page 5 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

FCC has recognized the important role of states. In its rules and 

procedures the FCC concluded that because states play a central role in 

managing emergency communications and are usually in control at large 

scale-events and disasters, states should administer the interoperability 

channels within the 700 MHz band of communications spectrum. States 

can play a key role in improving interoperable communications by 

establishing a management structure that includes local participation and 

input to analyze and identify interoperability gaps between “what is” and 

“what should be,” developing comprehensive local, state, and regional 

plans to address such gaps, and funding these plans. The states we visited 

or contacted—California, Florida, Georgia, Washington, Missouri and a 

five state Midwest consortium—were in various stages of formulating 

these management structures. However, states are not required to 

establish a statewide management structure or to develop interoperability 

plans, and there is no clear guidance on what should be included in such 

plans. In addition, no requirement exists that interoperability of federal 

communications systems be coordinated with state and local government 

communications systems. The use of a standard database on 

communications frequencies by public safety agencies within the state and 

common terminology for these frequencies in preparation and 

implementation of these statewide interoperable plans are essential but 

are also not required. Without planning, coordination, and applicable 

standards—in other words, without a commonly understood and accepted 

blueprint or national architecture—the communications systems 

developed between and among locations and levels of government may 

not be interoperable. 

The federal grant structure does not fully support statewide planning for 

communications interoperability because, among other things, grant 

guidance is inconsistent and does not include interoperability planning 

requirements. In addition, uncoordinated federal and state level grant 

reviews limit the government’s ability to ensure that federal funds are used 

to effectively support improved regional and statewide communications 

systems. In an effort to address the issue of inconsistent guidance, in 2003 

SAFECOM coordinated with other agencies to develop standard grant 

guidance and requirements for planning, building, and training for 

interoperable communication. DOJ’s Office of Community Oriented 

Policing Services (COPS) Program and DHS’s Federal Emergency 
Page 6 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

Management Agency (FEMA), used portions of the guidance in their grant 

application requirements.3

We are making recommendations to DHS and OMB to improve the 

assessment and coordination of interoperable communications efforts. We 

recommend that the Secretary of DHS (1) develop a nationwide database 

of interoperable public safety frequency channels and a standard 

nationwide nomenclature for these channels, (2) establish requirements 

for interoperable communications and assist states in assessing 

interoperability in their states against those requirements; (3) through DHS 

grant guidance, encourage states to establish a single statewide body to 

assess interoperability and develop a single comprehensive statewide 

interoperability plan for federal, state, and local communications systems 

in all frequency bands, and (4) at the appropriate time, require through 

DHS grant guidance that any purchase of interoperable communications 

equipment with federal funds must be certified as being in conformance 

with statewide interoperability plans. We also recommend that the 

Director of OMB in conjunction with DHS review SAFECOM’s functions 

and establish those functions as a long-term program with adequate 

authority and funding. 

In commenting on a draft of this report, the Department of Homeland 

Security discusses actions the department is taking that are generally 

consistent with the intent of our recommendations but do not directly 

address specific steps detailed in our recommendations with respect to 

establishment of statewide bodies responsible for interoperable 

communications within the state, the development of comprehensive 

statewide interoperability plans and tying federal funds for 

communications equipment directly to those statewide interoperable 

plans. The Department’s comments are discussed later in this report. The 

Department letter is reprinted in appendix VII. 

Interoperable communications is not an end in itself. Rather, it is a 

necessary means for achieving an important goal—the ability to respond 

effectively to and mitigate incidents that require the coordinated actions of 

first responders, such as multi-vehicle accidents, natural disasters, or 

 3

Congress authorized the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) within 

the Department of Justice to administer the Interoperable Communications Technology 

Program. The program awarded 14 grants totaling more than $66 million to first responders 

for interoperable communications in 2003 and provides technical assistance to grantees. 

Background 
Page 7 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

terrorist attacks. Public safety officials have pointed out that needed 

interoperable communications capabilities are based on whether 

communications are needed for (1) “mutual-aid responses” or routine dayto-day coordination between two local agencies; (2) extended task force 

operations involving members of different agencies coming together to 

work on a common problem, such as the 2002 sniper attacks in the 

Washington, D.C. metropolitan area; or (3) a major event that requires 

response from a variety of local, state, and federal agencies, such as major 

wildfires, hurricanes, or the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. A 

California State official with long experience in public safety 

communications breaks the major event category into three separate types 

of events: (1) planned events, such as the Olympics, for which plans can be 

made in advance; (2) recurring events, such as major wildfires and other 

weather events, that can be expected every year and for which 

contingency plans can be prepared based on past experience; and 

(3) unplanned events, such as the September 11th attacks, that can rapidly 

overwhelm the ability of local forces to handle the problem. 

Interoperable communications are but one component, although a key 

one, of an effective incident command planning and operations structure. 

As shown in figure 1, determining the most appropriate means of 

achieving interoperable communications must flow from an 

comprehensive incident command and operations plan that includes 

developing an operational definition of who is in charge for different types 

of events and what types of information would need to be communicated 

(voice, data, or both) to whom under what circumstances. Other steps 

include: 

• defining the range of interoperable communications capabilities needed 

for specific types of events; 

• assessing the current capabilities to meet these communications needs; 

• identifying the gap between current capabilities and defined requirements; 

• assessing alternative means of achieving defined interoperable 

communications requirements; and 

• developing a comprehensive plan—including, for example, mutual aid 

agreements, technology and equipment specifications, and training—for 

closing the gap between current capabilities and identified requirements. 
Page 8 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

Interoperable communications requirements are not static, but change 

over time with changing circumstances (e.g., new threats) and technology 

(e.g., new equipment), and additional spectrum as it becomes available. 

Consequently, both a short- and long-term “feedback loop” that 

incorporates regular assessments of current capabilities and needed 

changes is important. 

Figure 1: A Planning Process for Interoperable Communications 

The first responder community is extensive and extremely diverse in size 

and the types of equipment in their communications systems. According to 

SAFECOM officials, there are over 2.5 million public safety- first 

responders within more than 50,000 public safety organizations in the 

United States. Local and state agencies own over 90 percent of the existing 

public safety communications infrastructure. This intricate public safety 

communications infrastructure incorporates a wide variety of 

Many Agencies and Groups 

Have Examined and 

Reported on 

Interoperability Issues 
Page 9 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

technologies, equipment types, and spectrum bands.4 In addition to the 

difficulty that this complex environment poses for federal, state, and local 

coordination, 85 percent of fire personnel, and nearly as many emergency 

management technicians, are volunteers with elected leadership. Many of 

these agencies are small and do not have technical expertise; only the 

largest of the agencies have engineers and technicians. 

In the past, a stovepiped, single jurisdiction, or agency-specific 

communication systems development approach prevailed—resulting in 

none or less than desired interoperable communications systems. Public 

safety agencies have historically planned and acquired communications 

systems for their own jurisdictions without concern for interoperability. 

This meant that each state and local agency developed communications 

systems to meet their own requirements, without regard to interoperability 

requirements to talk to adjacent jurisdictions. For example, a Public Safety 

Wireless Network (PSWN) analysis of Fire and Emergency Management 

Services (EMS) communications interoperability found a significant need 

for coordinated approaches, relationship building, and information 

sharing.5

 However, the PSWN program office found that public safety 

agencies have traditionally developed or updated their radio systems 

independently to meet specific mission needs. 

According to a study conducted by the National Task Force on 

Interoperability,6

 public safety officials have unique and demanding 

communications requirements. According to the study, however, when the 

issue of interoperability is raised, officials respond that they are unable to 

even talk to their own personnel, much less expand their communications 

to include reliable and interoperable local and regional communications, 

and, ultimately reliable and interoperable local, state, and federal 

 4

The spectrum bands are the useable radio frequencies in the electromagnetic distribution. 

Specific frequencies have been allotted for the public safety community. 

5

Fire and EMS Communications Interoperability, April, 1999. The Department of Justice 

and the Department of the Treasury formed PSWN to promote effective public safety 

communications and to foster interoperability among local, state, federal, and tribal 

communications systems. PSWN was incorporated into DHS as part of the SAFECOM 

project in 2003. 

6

Why Can’t We Talk? Working Together to Bridge the Communications Gap to Save 

Lives: Feb. 2003). The Task Force was formed and funded by the National Institute of 

Justice, Department of Justice, and included representatives from associations across the 

public safety community, such as fire and police chiefs, emergency managers, mayors, 

cities, and states. 
Page 10 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

communications. The events of September 11, 2001, which called for an 

integrated response of federal, state, and local first responders, highlighted 

the need for interoperable first responder communication across 

disciplines and throughout levels of government. 

The attacks on New York City and the Pentagon have resulted in greater 

public and governmental focus on the role of first responders and their 

capabilities to respond to emergencies, including those resulting from 

terrorist incidents. One result has been significantly increased federal 

funding for state and local first responders, including funding to improve 

interoperable communications among federal, state, and local first 

responders. In fiscal year 2003, Congress appropriated at least $154 million 

targeted specifically for interoperability through a variety of grants 

administered by the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of 

Justice, and other agencies. Other available grants, such as the Homeland 

Security Grant, could be used for a variety of purposes, including 

interoperable communications. 

For over 15 years, the federal government has been concerned with public 

safety spectrum issues, including communications interoperability issues.7

A variety of federal departments and agencies have been involved in 

efforts to define the problem and to identify potential solutions, such as 

the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Department of Justice 

(DOJ), the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and the National 

Telecommunications and Information Agency (NTIA) within the 

Department of Commerce (DOC), among others. Today, a combination of 

federal agencies, programs, and associations are involved in coordinating 

emergency communications. 

DHS has several agencies and programs involved with addressing first 

responder interoperable communication barriers, including the SAFECOM 

program, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and the 

Office for Domestic Preparedness (ODP). As one of its 24 E-Gov 

initiatives, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in 2001 created 

 7

The radiofrequency spectrum is the medium that enables wireless communications of all 

kinds. Although the radio spectrum spans the range from 3 kilohertz to 300 gigahertz, 

90 percent of its use is concentrated in the 1 percent of frequencies that lie below 

3.1 gigahertz, because these frequencies have properties that make this portion of the 

spectrum well suited for many important wireless technologies. Radio waves are a form of 

electromagnetic radiation that propagate in space as the result of particle oscillations. The 

number of oscillations per second is called “frequency,” which is measured in units of 

hertz. The term “kilohertz” refers to thousands of hertz and “gigahertz” to billions of hertz. 
Page 11 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

SAFECOM to unify the federal government’s efforts to help coordinate the 

work at the federal, state, local, and tribal levels to establish reliable 

public safety communications and achieve national wireless 

communications interoperability. The SAFECOM program was brought 

into DHS in early 2003. In June 2003, SAFECOM partnered with the 

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the National 

Institute of Justice (NIJ) to hold a summit that brought together over 60 

entities involved with communications interoperability policy setting or 

programs. According to NIST, the summit familiarized key interoperability 

players with work being done by others and provided insight into where 

additional federal resources may be needed. 

In addition to the many federal agencies and programs involved with 

shaping first responder interoperable communication policies, a range of 

public safety associations play a significant role in defining the problems 

and solutions to emergency communications interoperability. For example 

the National Public Safety Telecommunications Council (NPSTC) is a 

federation representing public safety telecommunications. The purpose of 

NPSTC is to follow up on the recommendations made by the Public Safety 

Wireless Advisory Committee (PSWAC) to FCC and the National 

Telecommunications and Information Agency on public safety 

communication needs.8

 In addition, NPSTC acts as a resource and 

advocate for public safety telecommunications issues and is working with 

SAFECOM to develop requirements for first responder communications. 

FCC established the Public Safety National Coordination Committee 

(NCC) to advise them on spectrum policy decisions for public safety 

interoperable communications. In July 2003, NCC made several 

recommendations to FCC for improving communications interoperability. 

The NCC’s charter expired on July 25, 2003 and it has since been 

dissolved. 

In 2002, the National Governors Association released a report that 

recommended that governors and their state homeland security directors 

 8

Final Report of the Public Safety Wireless Advisory Committee: Sept. 1996. The FCC and 

the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information 

Administration formed the Advisory Committee in June 1995 to provide advice on the 

specific wireless communications requirements of public safety agencies through the year 

2010 and to make recommendations for meeting those needs. Members were drawn from 

private industry, federal agencies, and state and local public safety agencies. The FCC 

regulates state and local government use of radio frequency spectrum and the NTIA 

regulates federal government use of radio frequency spectrum. 
Page 12 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

(1) develop a statewide vision for interoperable communications, 

(2) ensure adequate wireless spectrum to accommodate all users, 

(3) invest in new communications infrastructure, (4) develop standards for 

technology and equipment, and (5) partner with government and private 

industry.9

These associations and task forces are just a small representation of the 

many organizations identified by DHS and NIST as contributors to public 

safety interoperable communications efforts. 

Several technical factors specifically limit interoperability of public safety 

wireless communications systems. First, public safety agencies have been 

assigned frequencies in new bands over time as available frequencies 

become congested and as new technology made other frequencies 

available for use. As a result, public safety agencies now operate over 

multiple frequency bands—operating on these different bands required 

different radios because technology was not available to include all bands 

in one radio. Thus, the new bands provided additional capabilities but 

fragmented the public safety radio frequency spectrum, making 

communications among different jurisdictions difficult. Another technical 

factor inhibiting interoperability is the different technologies or different 

applications of the same technology by manufacturers of public safety 

radio equipment. One manufacture may design equipment with proprietary 

technology that will not work with equipment produced by another 

manufacturer. 

The current status of wireless interoperable communications across the 

nation—including current interoperable communications capability and 

the scope and severity of any problems—has not been determined. 

Although various reports have documented the lack of interoperability of 

first responders’ wireless communications in specific locations, complete 

and current data do not exist documenting current interoperable 

communications capabilities and the scope and severity of any problems 

at the local, state, interstate, or federal level across the nation. 

SAFECOM plans to conduct a nationwide survey to assess current 

capabilities of public safety agency wireless communications. 

 9

A Governor’s Guide to Emergency Management. Volume Two: Homeland Security 

(Washington, D.C.: 2002). 

Nature and Scope of 

Interoperable 

Communications 

Problems Nationwide 

Are Unknown and Not 

Easily Identified and 

Catalogued 
Page 13 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

Accumulating these data may be difficult, however, because several 

problems inhibit efforts to identify and define current interoperable 

communications capabilities and future requirements. Improving the 

interoperability of first responder wireless communications requires a 

clear assessment of the current state of public safety wireless 

communications interoperability, using a set of defined requirements; an 

operational definition of any problems; and a planning framework to guide 

the resolution of those problems. However, defining interoperability 

problems is difficult because interoperability requirements and problems 

are situation specific and evolve over time. 

By 2008, SAFECOM expects all public safety agencies in the United States 

to have a minimum level of interoperability, as defined by a national 

interoperability baseline. However, SAFECOM officials said they lack 

current nationwide information on the interoperable communications 

problems of first responders. Two key studies in the late 1990s sponsored 

by DOJ and PSWN program provide a nationwide picture of wireless 

interoperability issues among federal, state, and local police, fire, and 

emergency medical service agencies at that time.10 Both studies describe 

most local public safety agencies as interacting with other local agencies 

on a daily or weekly basis. As a result, most local agencies had more 

confidence in establishing radio links with one another than with state 

agencies, with whom they less frequently interact. Local public safety 

agencies interact with federal agencies least of all, with a smaller 

percentage of local agencies expressing confidence in their ability to 

establish radio links with federal agencies. 

However, the events of September 11, 2001, have resulted in a 

reexamination of the circumstances in which interoperable 

communications should extend across political jurisdictions and levels of 

government. To obtain a current national picture, SAFECOM established 

as a key objective to assess by July 2005 the current state of 

interoperability across the nation and create a nationwide baseline 

describing public safety communications and interoperability. The 

 10Wireless Communications and Interoperability Among State and Local Law 

Enforcement Agencies, January, 1998 by DOJ, and “Fire and EMS Communications 

Interoperability, April, 1999” by PSWN. DOJ’s study concentrated on wireless 

interoperability issues within the state and local law enforcement community, while 

PSWN’s study assessed communications interoperability issues within the fire and 

emergency medical services communities. 

Federal Plans to Obtain 

Data on the Scope and 

Nature of Interoperable 

Communications Problems 
Page 14 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

baseline will be the basis for measuring future improvements made 

through local, state, and federal public safety communications initiatives. 

SAFECOM officials said their study will be designed to measure actual 

interoperability capabilities in a sample of locations selected to represent 

the national condition. According to these officials, SAFECOM will 

conduct a gap analysis, which will compare the actual levels of 

interoperability within a state to the various scenarios used in a 

nationwide statement of requirements and determine the minimum level of 

interoperability that needs to be obtained. 

Establishing a national baseline for public safety wireless communications 

interoperability will be difficult because the definition of who to include as 

a first responder is evolving, and interoperability problems and solutions 

are situation specific and change over time to reflect new technologies and 

operational requirements. In a joint SAFECOM/AGILE11 program planning 

meeting in December 2003, participants agreed that a national baseline is 

necessary to know what the nations’ interoperability status really is, to set 

goals, and to measure progress. However, at the meeting, participants said 

they did not know how they were going to define interoperability, how 

they could measure interoperability, or how to select their sample of 

representative jurisdictions; this was all to be determined at a later date. 

At the time of our review, SAFECOM officials acknowledged that 

establishing a baseline will be difficult and said they are working out the 

details of their baseline study but still expect to complete it by July 2005. 

DHS also has other work under way that may provide a tool for such selfassessments by public safety officials. An ODP official in the Border and 

Transportation Security Directorate of DHS said ODP is supporting the 

development of a communications and interoperability needs assessment 

for 118 jurisdictions that make up the Kansas City region. The official said 

the assessment will provide an inventory of communications equipment 

and identify how the equipment is used. He also said the results of this 

prototype effort will be placed on a CD-Rom and distributed to states and 

localities to provide a tool to conduct their own self assessments. 

SAFECOM officials said they will review ODP’s assessment tool as part of 

a coordinated effort and use this tool if it meets the interoperability 

requirements of first responders. 

 11The Advanced Generation of Interoperability for Law Enforcement (AGILE) is a key DOJ 

program promoting wireless interoperability for first responders. 
Page 15 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

Public safety officials generally recognize that interoperable 

communications is the ability to talk with whom they want, when they 

want, when authorized, but not the ability to talk with everyone all of the 

time. However, there is no standard definition of communications 

interoperability. Nor is there a “one size fits all” requirement for who 

needs to talk to whom. Traditionally, first responders have been 

considered to be fire, police, and emergency medical service personnel. 

However, in a description of public safety challenges, a federal official 

noted that the attacks of September 11, 2001, have blurred the lines 

between public safety and national security. According to the Gilmore 

Commission, effective preparedness for combating terrorism at the local 

level requires a network that includes public health departments, hospitals 

and other medical providers, and offices of emergency management, in 

addition to the traditional police, fire, and emergency medical services 

first responders.12 Furthermore, Congress provided an expanded definition 

of first responders in the Homeland Security Act of 2002, which defined 

“emergency response providers” as including “Federal, State, and local 

emergency public safety, law enforcement, emergency response, 

emergency medical (including hospital emergency facilities), and related 

personnel, agencies, and authorities.”13

Technological changes also present new problems and opportunities for 

achieving and maintaining effective interoperable communications. 

According to one official, in the 1980s a method of voice transmission 

called “trunking” became available that allowed more efficient use of 

spectrum. However, three different and incompatible trunking 

technologies developed, and these systems were not interoperable. This 

official noted that as mobile data communications becomes more 

prevalent and new digital technologies are introduced, standards become 

more important. 

In addition, technical standards for interoperable communications are still 

under development. Beginning in 1989, a partnership between industry and 

the public safety user community developed what is known as Project 25 

(P-25) standards. According to the PSWN program office, Project 25 

 12Third Annual Report to the President and the Congress of the Advisory Panel to Assess 

Domestic Response Capabilities for Terrorism Involving Weapons of Mass Destruction, 

December 15, 2001. The panel is generally referred to as the Gilmore Commission, after its 

Chairman James S. Gilmore, III. 

13Homeland Security Act of 2002, Pub. L. No. 107-296, § 2 (6), 116 Stat. 2135, 2140. 

Interoperability Issues 

Change as the Definition of 

First Responders Expands 

and Technology Evolves 
Page 16 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

standards remain the only user-defined set of standards in the United 

States for public safety communications. DHS purchased radios that 

incorporate the P-25 standards for each of the nation’s 28 urban search 

and rescue teams. PSWN believes P-25 is an important step toward 

achieving interoperability, but the standards do not mandate 

interoperability among all manufacturers’ systems. Standards development 

continues today as new technologies emerge that meet changing user 

needs and new policy requirements. 

Finally, new public safety mission requirements for video, imaging, and 

high-speed data transfers, new and highly complex digital communications 

systems, and the use of commercial wireless systems are potential sources 

of new interoperability problems. Availability of new spectrum can also 

encourage the development of new technologies and require further 

development of technical standards. For example, the FCC recently 

designated a new band of spectrum, the 4.9 Gigahertz (GHz) band, for use 

and support of public safety. The FCC provided this additional spectrum 

to public safety users to support new broadband applications such as highspeed digital technologies and wireless local area networks for incident 

scene management. The FCC requested in particular comments on the 

implementation of technical standards for fixed and mobile operations on 

the band. NPSTC has established a task force that includes work on 

interoperability standards for the 4.9 GHz band. 

The federal government has a long history in addressing federal, state, and 

local government public safety issues—in particular interoperability 

issues. Congress has also recently contributed to the development of 

policies. In October 2002 the House Committee on Government Reform 

issued a report entitled How Can the Federal Government Better Assist 

State and local Governments in Preparing for a Biological, Chemical, or 

Nuclear Attack? The Committee’s first finding was that incompatible 

communication systems impede intergovernmental coordination efforts. 

The Committee recommended that the federal government take a 

leadership role in resolving the communications interoperability problem. 

In December 2003, the SAFECOM and the AGILE program within DOJ 

issued a joint report in which they established a series of initiatives and 

goals extending over the next 20 years. The report concludes that a 

continuous and participatory effort is required to improve public safety 

communications and interoperability. OMB created the SAFECOM 

program as a short-term (18-24 months) E-Gov initiative. It had no 

designated long-term mission. However, OMB has identified SAFECOM as 

Federal Role in 

Interoperability 

Problems Continues 

to Evolve 
Page 17 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

the primary program responsible for coordinating federal efforts to 

improve interoperability. How to institutionalize that role is still an 

evolving process. In addition, the roles and responsibilities of the various 

federal agencies—the FCC, DOJ, and others—involved in communications 

interoperability have not been fully defined and SAFECOM’s authority to 

oversee and coordinate federal and state efforts is limited. DHS, where 

SAFECOM now resides, has recently announced it is establishing an Office 

for Interoperability and Compatibility to coordinate the federal response 

to the problems of interoperability and compatibility. The exact structure 

and funding for the office, which will include SAFECOM, are still being 

developed. 

There are areas in which the federal government can provide leadership, 

such as developing national requirements and a national architecture for 

public safety interoperable communications, national databases, and 

common, nationwide terminology for communications. Moreover, the 

federal government alone can allocate communications spectrum for 

public safety use. 

One key barrier to the development of a national interoperability strategy 

has been the lack of a statement of national mission requirements for 

public safety—what set of communications capabilities should be built or 

acquired—and a strategy to get there. A key initiative in the SAFECOM 

program plan for the year 2005 is to complete a comprehensive Public 

Safety Statement of Requirements. The statement is to provide functional 

requirements that define how, when, and where public safety practitioners 

communicate. On April 26, 2004, DHS announced the release of the first 

comprehensive Statement of Requirements defining future communication 

requirements and outlining future technology needed to meet these 

requirements. According to DHS, the statement provides a shared vision 

and an architectural framework for future interoperable public safety 

communications. 

DHS describes the Statement of Requirements as a living document that 

will define future communications services as they change or become new 

requirements for public safety agencies in carrying out their missions. 

SAFECOM officials said additional versions of the statement will 

incorporate whatever is needed to meet future needs but did not provide 

specific details. One example of potential future development is expanded 

coverage to include public safety support functions. The current statement 

is incomplete because it only addresses the functional requirements for 

traditional public safety first responders—Emergency Medical Services 

Establishing National 

Requirements and a 

National Architecture 
Page 18 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

personnel, firefighters, and law enforcement officers. The statement 

recognizes the existence of but does not include in this version those 

elements of the public safety community—such as transportation or public 

utility workers—whose primary mission provides vital support to public 

safety officials. 

A national architecture has not yet been prepared to guide the creation of 

interoperable communications. An explicit, commonly understood, and 

agreed-to blueprint, or architecture, is required to effectively and 

efficiently guide modernization efforts. For a decade, GAO has promoted 

the use of architectures, recognizing them as a crucial means to a 

challenging goal: agency operational structures that are optimally defined 

in both business and technological environments.14 Office of Management 

and Budget officials told us that OMB charged SAFECOM with developing 

a national architecture, which will include local, state, and federal 

government architectures. According to these officials, SAFECOM is to 

work closely with state and local governments to establish a basic 

understanding of what infrastructure currently exists, and to identify 

public safety communication requirements. SAFECOM officials said 

development of a national architecture will take time because SAFECOM 

must first assist state and local governments to establish their 

communications architectures. They said SAFECOM will then collect the 

state and local architectures, and fit them into a national architecture that 

links federal communications into the state and local infrastructure. 

State and local officials consider a standard database to be essential to 

frequency planning and coordination for interoperability frequencies and 

for general public safety purposes. The Public Safety National 

Communications Council (NCC), appointed by the FCC to make 

recommendations for public safety use of the 700 MHz communications 

spectrum, recommended that the FCC mandate Regional Planning 

Committee use of a standard database to coordinate frequencies during 

 14An enterprise architecture can be viewed as a link between an organization’s strategic 

plan and the program and supporting systems implementation investments it intends to 

pursue to systematically achieve its strategic goals and outcomes. As such the architecture 

is basically a blueprint, defined largely by interrelated models, that describes (in both 

business and technology terms) an entity’s “as is” or current environment, its “to be” future 

environment, and its investment plan for transitioning from the current to the future 

environment. See Information Technology: The Federal Enterprise Architecture and 

Agencies Enterprise Architectures Are Still Maturing GAO-04-798T (Washington, D.C.: 

May 19, 2004). 

Standard Databases to 

Support Interoperable 

Communications Not 

Established 
Page 19 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

license applications. In January 2001, the FCC rejected this 

recommendation noting that while the NCC believed that use of this 

database would ensure avoidance of channel interference between 

spectrum users, mandating use of the database was premature because it 

had not been fully developed and tested. The FCC directed the NCC to 

revisit the issue of mandating the database once the database is developed 

and has begun operation. 

In its final report of July 25, 2003, the NCC noted that on July 18, 2003 the 

National Public Safety Telecommunications Council demonstrated to FCC 

staff what it represented was an operational version of the database, now 

named the Computer Assisted Pre-Coordination Resource and Database 

System (CAPRAD). The NCC urged the FCC to reevaluate its position in 

light of the demonstration of CAPRAD, and, if appropriate, to adopt a rule 

requiring its use by Regional Planning Committees in their planning 

process. 

Officials at the National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology 

Center (NLECTC)—Rocky Mountain Center15 said they are developing and 

administering the CAPRAD database. Center officials told us CAPRAD is a 

frequency pre-coordination database that is evolving as the user 

community defines its requirements. For example, they said CAPRAD was 

used to develop a draft nationwide 700 MHz frequency allocation plan that 

included interoperability frequencies, frequencies allocated to states for 

general state purposes, and frequencies allocated to the general public 

safety community. FCC designated Regional Planning Committees16 and 

 15The National Public Safety Telecommunications Council (NPSTC) Support Office 

operates as part of the National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Center–

Rocky Mountain Center (NLECTC-RM). NLECTC is a program of the National Institute of 

Justice, the research and development arm of the U.S. Department of Justice. The NLECTC 

is hosted by the University of Denver. The NPSTC Support Office and its work on CAPRAD 

is funded by the Department of Justice AGILE program. AGILE funding also supports the 

FCC designated Regional Planning Committees. 

16In 1987, the FCC developed a National Plan for Public Safety Radio Services that set 

national guidelines for use of the 800 MHz spectrum while allowing regional public safety 

planning committees to develop regional plans tailored to their areas own particular 

communications needs. A large portion of the 700 MHz public safety spectrum, 

approximately 53 percent (12.5 MHz), is designated for general use by local, regional and 

state users. A regional planning process was adopted to govern management of this public 

safety spectrum. It is a similar process to that used in the 821-824 MHz and 866-869 MHz 

bands. Regional Planning Committees (RPCs) are allowed maximum flexibility to meet 

state and local needs, encourage innovative use of the spectrum, and accommodate new 

and as yet unanticipated developments in technology equipment. They are responsible for 

creating and managing regional plans. 
Page 20 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

frequency coordinators17 can then use this plan as a starting point to 

develop detailed plans for their regions. Center officials said that several 

RPCs have also loaded their 700 and 800 MHz regional plans into CAPRAD 

for review by adjacent RPCs or officials needing information on a regional 

plan. Center officials also told us that they are working on a comparable 

SIEC model to include interoperability channels across all bands. 

State and local officials we visited were familiar with the database and 

generally favored its use. For example, a California state official wrote us 

that some California state and local officials participated in the drafting of 

this NCC recommendation and believe its use will assist in preventing 

interstate interference. State and local officials in the State of Washington 

said that the use of the CAPRAD database should be mandatory. The 

officials said CAPRAD would facilitate new spectrum allocation and precoordination of spectrum. In addition, they said CAPRAD holds the 

potential of eliminating interference between users, and is the first 

universally accepted frequency coordination database. It holds the 

promise of a one-stop frequency coordination database, according to a 

Washington State Department of Information Services official. 

Technology solutions by themselves are not sufficient to fully address 

communication interoperability problems in a given local government, 

state, or multi-state region. For example, the regional communications 

chairs of the Florida Regional Domestic Security Task Forces have noted 

that non-technical barriers are the most important and difficult to solve. 

Police and fire departments often have different concepts and doctrines 

on how to operate an incident command post and use interoperable 

communications. Similarly, first responders, such as police and fire 

departments, may use different terminology to describe the same thing. 

Differences in terminology and operating procedures can lead to 

communications problems even where the participating public safety 

agencies share common communications equipment and spectrum. 

State and local officials have drawn specific attention to problems caused 

by the lack of common terminology in naming the same interoperability 

frequency. In January 2001 the FCC rejected an NCC recommendation that 

 17FCC has certified specific associations to perform the coordination process used to 

choose appropriate frequencies for public safety mobile radio systems. This coordination is 

essential to ensure that the numerous systems across the country have clear and 

interference free operation on these critical radio systems. 

Common Terminology for 

Interoperable Channels 

Not Established 
Page 21 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

the FCC mandate through its rules that specific names be designated for 

each interoperability channel on all public safety bands. The Commission 

said it would have to change its rules each time the public safety 

community wished to revise a channel label and that this procedure would 

be too cumbersome. 

In its final report on July 25, 2003, the NCC renewed its earlier 

recommendation and added a recommendation that all radios that include 

a channel-selection display be required to use the standard names. The 

NCC said standard names are essential to achieve interoperability because 

all responders to an incident must know what channel to which they must 

tune their radios. The NCC said adoption of such standard names will 

avoid confusion resulting from use of different names for the same 

frequency by different jurisdictions. In an earlier May 29, 2003 report, the 

NCC noted multiple examples where lack of common channel names had 

disrupted coordination of effective response to incidents. The NCC noted 

that the problem could endanger life and property in a very large-scale 

incident. In addition, the NCC noted that its recommendation could be 

implemented in a short time at virtually no cost and that the 

recommendation was consistent with previous FCC actions. For example, 

the NCC noted that the FCC had designated channels specified for medical 

communications use for the specific purpose of uniform usage. 

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) created SAFECOM in 2001 

to unify the federal governments’ efforts to coordinate work at the federal, 

state, local and tribal levels on improving interoperable communications. 

According to OMB, SAFECOM is the umbrella program for all Federal 

interoperability efforts and will work with state and local interoperability 

initiatives. DHS is the managing partner of the SAFECOM project with six 

additional agencies as partner agencies. The partner agencies include the 

Departments of Defense, Energy, Interior, Justice, Health and Human 

Services, and Agriculture. According to OMB, all of these agencies have 

significant roles to play in public safety communications, 

emergency/incident response and management, and law enforcement. 

Our April 2004 report on Project SAFECOM18 compared SAFECOM’s 

progress against its overall objective of achieving national wireless 

 18Project SAFECOM: Key Cross-Agency Emergency Communications Effort Requires 

Stronger Collaboration, GAO-04-494 (Washington, D.C.: April 2004). 

Converting SAFECOM’s 

Functions to a Long-Term 

Program 
Page 22 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

communications interoperability among first responders and public safety 

systems at all levels of government. This broad objective could not be fully 

realized within the target of 18 to 24 months. However, we also noted that 

two major factors have contributed to the project’s limited progress 

toward this objective: (1) a lack of consistent executive commitment and 

support and (2) an inadequate level of interagency collaboration. We 

concluded that until these shortcomings are addressed, the ability of 

SAFECOM to deliver on its promise of improved interoperability and 

better response to emergencies will remain in doubt. We recommended 

that the Secretary of Homeland Security direct the Under Secretary for 

Science and Technology to complete written agreements with other 

federal agencies and organizations representing state, local, and tribal 

governments that define the responsibilities and resource commitments 

that each of those organizations will assume. These agreements should 

include specific provisions for funding the project and measuring its 

performance. 

In addition, key program structure and funding issues seriously limit the 

ability of SAFECOM to affect the future long-term development of the 

interoperability function and mission. SAFECOM’s program and funding 

structure were established to address the public safety wireless 

communications problems as a short-term, 18-24 month project. However, 

DHS recognizes that a long-term, intergovernmental effort will be needed 

to achieve the program’s overall goal of improving emergency response 

through broadly interoperable first responder communications systems. 

As a result, DHS set a SAFECOM goal to establish a “system of systems” 

by 2023 that will provide the necessary interoperability for public safety 

users. The program funding structure as established does not support a 

long-term program. Because SAFECOM is an E-Gov project, each year 

OMB instructs federal agencies designated as a partner with SAFECOM to 

provide specified amounts of funding to SAFECOM. SAFECOM negotiates 

an annual Memorandum of Agreement on funding or program 

participation with each of these agencies; however, in our Project 

SAFECOM report, we said that by the end of our field work in 2004 

SAFECOM had signed an agreement with only one agency in fiscal year 

2004. 

Representatives of federal, state, and local public safety users identified as 

a high priority the development of a business case with long term 

sustainable funding for a national office for public safety communications 

and interoperability and recommended that this office should become a 

part of the annual President’s budget request process. SAFECOM officials 

said establishment of a budget funding line for SAFECOM was discussed 
Page 23 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

for fiscal year 2005 budget, but the budget does not contain a funding line 

for SAFECOM in fiscal year 2005 or beyond. 

DHS has not defined how it will convert the current short-term program 

and funding structures to a permanent program office structure. When it 

does, DHS must carefully define the SAFECOM mission and roles in 

relation to other agencies within DHS and in other federal agencies that 

have missions that may be related to the OMB assigned mission for 

SAFECOM. SAFECOM must coordinate with multiple federal agencies, 

including ODP within DHS, AGILE in DOJ; DOD; the FCC; the NTIA within 

DOC, and other agencies. For example, the Homeland Security Act assigns 

ODP primary responsibility within the executive branch for preparing the 

United States for acts of terrorism, including coordinating or, as 

appropriate, consolidating communications and systems of 

communications relating to homeland security at all levels of government. 

An ODP official said the Homeland Security Act granted authority to ODP 

to serve as the primary agency for preparedness against acts of terrorism, 

to specifically include communications issues. He said ODP is working 

with states and local jurisdictions to institutionalize a strategic planning 

process that assesses and funds their requirements. As indicated earlier, 

ODP also plans to develop tools to link these assessments to detailed 

interoperable communications plans. According to this official, 

SAFECOM, as part of the Science and Technology Directorate, is 

responsible for (1) developing standards; (2) research, development, 

testing, and evaluation of public safety communications; and (3) advising 

ODP about available technologies and standards. 

In addition, although OMB states that SAFECOM is the umbrella program 

to coordinate actions of the federal government, it does not include all 

major federal efforts aimed at promoting wireless interoperability for first 

responders. Specifically, the Justice Department continues to play a strong 

role in interoperability after establishment of DHS. Key Justice 

programs—the Advanced Generation of Interoperability for Law 

Enforcement (AGILE) and the Interoperable Communication Technology 

Program administered by the Office of Community Oriented Policing 

Services (COPS)—did not transition to the SAFECOM program in the new 

Department of Homeland Security. 

AGILE is the Department of Justice program to assist state and local law 

enforcement agencies to effectively and efficiently communicate with one 

another across agency and jurisdictional boundaries. It is dedicated to 

Multiple Federal Agencies 

Have Roles and 

Responsibilities for 

Interoperability 
Page 24 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

studying interoperability options and advising state and local law 

enforcement agencies. The SAFECOM program director also said most of 

the federal research and development on prototypes is being conducted 

within the AGILE program. 

SAFECOM and AGILE officials told us they have a close working 

relationship. The SAFECOM and AGILE programs also held a joint 

planning meeting in early December 2003 and developed an action plan 

that SAFECOM and AGILE said they were committed to implement, given 

available resources. 

DHS must also coordinate with the Department of Defense (DOD) to 

address chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and high explosive 

events. A November 2003 Defense Science Board (DSB) report said DOD’s 

role includes, when directed, military support to civil authorities, and that 

DOD assistance could be required to assist in incident response. But the 

Board concluded that DOD must improve communication interoperability 

between first responders and federal, state, and local agencies involved in 

emergency preparedness and incident response. 

SAFECOM officials also will face a complex issue when they address 

public safety spectrum management and coordination. The National 

Governors’ Guide to Emergency Management noted that extensive 

coordination will be required between the FCC and the NTIA to provide 

adequate spectrum and to enhance shared local, state, and federal 

communications. However, the current legal framework for domestic 

spectrum management is divided between the NTIA within the 

Department of Commerce, responsible for federal government spectrum 

use and the FCC, responsible for state, local, and other nonfederal 

spectrum use. In a September 2002 report on spectrum management and 

coordination, we found that FCC and NTIA’s efforts to manage their 

respective areas of responsibility are not guided by a national spectrum 

strategy.19 The FCC and the NTIA have conducted independent spectrum 

planning efforts and have recently taken steps to improve coordination, 

but have not yet implemented long-standing congressional directives to 

conduct joint, national spectrum planning. We recommended that the FCC 

and the NTIA develop a strategy for establishing a clearly defined national 

spectrum plan and submit a report to the appropriate congressional 

 19Telecommunications: Better Coordination and Enhanced Accountability Needed to 

Improve Spectrum Management, GAO-02-906 (Washington, D.C.: September, 2002). 
Page 25 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

committees. The FCC and the NTIA generally agreed with this 

recommendation. In a separate report, we also discussed several barriers 

to reforming spectrum management in the United States.20

In written comments on a draft of this report, the Department of 

Commerce said it had issued two spectrum policy reports on June 24, 

2004, in response to the President’s initiative, entitled Spectrum Policy for 

the 21st Century. The Department said the second report recommends an 

interagency effort to study the spectrum use and needs of the public safety 

community, a public safety demonstration program, and a comprehensive 

plan to address the spectrum shortage, interference, technology, and 

security issues of the public safety community. The Department also said 

that the DHS would be an integral partner in fulfilling its 

recommendations.21

SAFECOM is involved in several federal coordination initiatives, including 

efforts to coordinate federal funding, but according to its officials, it does 

not have the oversight authority or pertinent information to fully 

accomplish this objective. 

The SAFECOM program is attempting to coordinate federal grant funding 

to maximize the prospects for communication interoperability grants 

across federal agencies by means of interagency guidance. We selected 

several grant programs to determine how this guidance was used. We 

found that COPS (with DOJ) and FEMA (within DHS) used this guidance, 

at least in part, in their coordinated 2003 Interoperable Communications 

Equipment grants, and ODP used the guidance in its 2004 Homeland 

Security and Urban Areas Security Initiative grant programs. However, 

COPS and FEMA officials said that it was difficult to incorporate 

SAFECOM’s recommended criteria for planning public safety 

communications systems into their joint guidance because statutory 

language for their grant programs focuses on the purchase of equipment 

without specifically addressing planning. 

SAFECOM also does not have authority to require federal agencies to 

coordinate their grant award information. SAFECOM is currently engaged 

 20Telecommunications: Comprehensive Review Of U.S. Spectrum Management With 

Broad Stakeholder Involvement Is Needed, GAO-03-277 (Washington, D.C.: January 2003). 

21We did not evaluate these studies for purposes of this report. 

SAFECOM’s Authority to 

Coordinate Federal and 

State Efforts Is Limited 
Page 26 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

in an effort with DOJ to create a “collaborative clearinghouse” that could 

facilitate federal oversight of interoperable communications funding to 

jurisdictions and allow states access to this information for planning 

purposes. The database is intended to decrease duplication of funding and 

evaluation efforts, de-conflict the application process, maximize efficiency 

of limited federal funding, and serve as a data collection tool for lessons 

learned that would be accessible to state and locals. However, SAFECOM 

officials said that the challenge to implementing the coordinated project is 

getting federal agency collaboration and compliance. As of February 2004, 

the database only contains award information from the 2003 COPS and 

FEMA Interoperability Communications Equipment Grants. The database 

does not contain grant award information from the Office for Domestic 

Preparedness on its Urban Areas Security Initiative (UASI) grants or its 

Homeland Security grants (HSG), nor from FEMA’s Emergency 

Management Preparedness Grant or any other federal agency grant funds. 

SAFECOM’s oversight authority and responsibilities are dependant upon 

its overall mission. OMB officials told us that they are currently in the 

process of refocusing the mission of the SAFECOM program into three 

specific parts: (1) coordination of federal activities through several 

initiatives, including participation in the Federal Interagency Coordination 

Council (FICC)22 and establishment of a process for federal agencies to 

report and coordinate with SAFECOM on federal activities and 

investments in interoperability; (2) developing standards; and (3) 

developing a national architecture for addressing communications 

interoperability problems. OMB officials said identification of all current 

and planned federal agency communications programs affecting federal, 

state, and local wireless interoperability is difficult. According to these 

officials, OMB is developing a strategy to best utilize the SAFECOM 

program and examining options to enforce the new coordination and 

reporting process. SAFECOM officials said they are working to formalize 

the new reporting and coordination process by developing written 

agreements with other federal agencies and by obtaining concurrence of 

major state and local associations to the SAFECOM governance structure. 

 22FICC is an informal council consisting of federal agencies, whose mission is to help local, 

tribal, state, and federal public safety agencies improve public safety response through 

more effective and efficient interoperable wireless communications by reducing 

duplication in programs and activities, identifying and promoting best practices and 

coordinating federal grants, technical assistance, training, and standards. Proposed FICC 

members are federal agencies within DOJ, DHS, Defense, Agriculture, Health and Human 

Services, and Commerce. 
Page 27 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

SAFECOM officials noted that this newly refocused SAFECOM role does 

not include providing technical assistance or conducting operational 

testing of equipment.23 They said that their authority to conduct such 

activities will come from DHS enabling directives. SAFECOM officials also 

said that they have no enforcement authority to require other agencies to 

use the SAFECOM grant guidance in their funding decisions or to require 

agencies to provide grant program information to them for use in their 

database. 

The Directorate of Science and Technology (S&T) within DHS has been 

tasked to lead the planning and implementation of the Office of 

Interoperability and Compatibility (OIC). The new office is responsible for 

coordinating DHS efforts to address interoperability and compatibility of 

first responder equipment, to include both communications equipment and 

equipment such as personal protective equipment used by police and fire 

from multiple jurisdictions. The plan as approved by the Secretary states 

that by November 2004 the new office will be fully established and that 

action plans and a strategy will be prepared for each portfolio (type or 

class of equipment). The plan presents a budget estimate for the creation 

of the office through November 2004 but does not include costs to 

implement each portfolio’s strategy. 

In addition, plans for the new office do not clarify the roles of various 

federal agencies or specify what oversight authority the new office will 

have over federal agency communications programs. The Science and 

Technology Directorate is the manager of the new office, which is 

expected to establish partnerships with all relevant offices and agencies to 

effectively coordinate similar activities. These partners include 

representatives from national associations of emergency response 

providers, DHS and other government agencies, standards development 

organizations, and industry. The DHS plan for the new office includes a 

tool for relevant offices to identify areas in which they have current 

interoperability-related projects and thus identify program overlap inside 

and outside DHS and gaps in coverage. As of June 2004, the exact 

structure and funding for the office, including SAFECOM’s role within the 

office, were still being developed. 

 23See appendix III for a discussion of SAFECOM’s objectives to establish by 2005 (1) a 

research, development testing, and evaluation program that identifies and develops a longterm, sustainable technical foundation for interoperability improvements; and (2) a 

program to provide technical assistance to the public safety community. 

A New DHS Office of 

Interoperability and 

Compatibility 
Page 28 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

In our November 6, 2003,testimony, we identified three barriers to 

improving public safety wireless interoperable communications: problem 

definition, establishing interoperability goals and standards, and defining 

the roles of federal, state, and local governments and other entities.24 Of all 

these barriers, perhaps the most fundamental has been limited and 

fragmented planning and cooperation. No one first responder group, 

jurisdiction, or level of government can successfully address the 

challenges posed by the current state of interoperable communications. 

Effectively addressing these challenges requires the partnership and 

collaboration of first responder disciplines, jurisdictions, and levels of 

government—local, state, federal, and tribal. In the absence of that 

partnership and collaboration, we risk spending funds ineffectively—

especially for immediate, quick response solutions—and creating new 

problems in our attempt to resolve existing ones. An integrated planning 

process that is recognized by federal, state, and local officials as 

representing their interests is necessary to achieve that partnership and 

collaboration. 

Although no one level of government can successfully address 

interoperability communications challenges, the federal government can 

play a leadership role developing requirements and providing support for 

state efforts to assess their interoperable communications capability and 

develop statewide plans for transitioning from today’s capability to 

identified required capability. 

States are key players in responding to normal all-hazards emergencies 

and to terrorist threats. Homeland Security Presidential Directive 8 notes 

that awards to states are the primary mechanism for delivery of federal 

preparedness assistance for these missions. State and local officials also 

believe that states, with broad local and regional participation, have a key 

role to play in coordinating interoperable communications supporting 

these missions.25 The Public Safety Wireless Network (PSWN), in its report 

on the role of the state in providing interoperable communications, 

agreed. According to the PSWN report, state leadership in public safety 

communications is key to outreach efforts that emphasize development of 

common approaches to regional and statewide interoperability. The report 

 24Homeland Security: Challenges in Achieving Interoperable Communications for First 

Responders, GAO-04-231T (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 6, 2003). 

25Appendix IV discusses the evolving role of states and the challenges they face in 

addressing communications interoperability problems. 

State and Local 

Governments’ Roles 

in Statewide 

Interoperability 

Planning and 

Communications 
Page 29 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

said that state officials have a vested interest in establishing and 

protecting statewide wireless infrastructures because public safety 

communications often must cross more than one local jurisdictional 

boundary. 

However, states are not required to establish a statewide capability to 

(1) integrate statewide and regional interoperability planning and 

(2) prepare statewide interoperability plans that maximize use of spectrum 

to meet interoperability requirements of day-to-day operations, joint task 

force operations, and operations in major events. Federal, state, and local 

officials are not required to coordinate federal, state, and local 

interoperability spectrum resources that, if successfully addressed, have 

significant potential to improve public safety wireless communications 

interoperability. As a result, states may not prepare comprehensive and 

integrated statewide plans that address the specific interoperability issues 

present in each state across first responder disciplines and levels of 

government. 

Planning requires a structure to develop and implement plans over time. 

States, with broad input from local governments, are a logical choice to 

serve as a foundation for interoperability planning. As recognized by the 

Federal Communications Commission, states play a central role in 

managing emergency communications, and state level organizations are 

usually in control at large-scale events and disasters or multiagency 

incidents. In addition, the FCC noted that states are usually in the best 

position to coordinate with federal government emergency agencies. 

Furthermore, according to DHS officials, state and local governments own 

over 90 percent of the physical infrastructure for public safety 

communications. Recent DHS policies have also recognized states as being 

in a key position to coordinate state and local emergency response 

planning. The Office for Domestic Preparedness has designated states as 

the appropriate source to develop state homeland security strategies that 

are inclusive of local needs, including communication needs. 

According to PSWN, state leaders can also, through memorandum of 

understandings (MOU), help to define interagency relationships, reach 

procedural agreements, promote regular meetings of statewide or regional 

interoperability committees, and encourage joint efforts to deploy 

communications technology. State and local officials we talked with 

generally agreed that states can coordinate communications planning and 

funding support for state communications systems and coordinate 

interoperability efforts of local governments. For example, several officials 

State and Local 

Governments Well 

Positioned to Play Key 

Roles 
Page 30 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

said the state can facilitate the planning process by including key 

stakeholder input in the decision making process and ensuring that 

communications interoperability issues are addressed. These officials also 

see state roles in providing common infrastructure and developing routine 

training exercises. 

Several state and local agencies that we talked with emphasized that they 

are taking steps to address the need for statewide communications 

planning. State officials also told us that statewide interoperability is not 

enough because incidents first responders face could cross state 

boundaries. Thus, some states are also taking actions to address interstate 

interoperability problems. For example, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, 

Michigan, and Ohio officials said that their states have combined efforts to 

form the Midwest Public Safety Communications Consortium to promote 

interstate interoperability. According to these officials, they also have 

taken actions to form an interstate committee to develop interoperability 

plans and solicit support from key players, such as local public safety 

agencies. 

FCC recognized a strong state interest in planning and administering 

interoperability channels for public safety wireless communications when 

it adopted various technical and operational rules and polices for the 700 

MHz band. In these rules and policies, FCC concluded that administration 

of the 2.6 MHz of interoperability channels in that band (approximately 

10 percent) should occur at the state-level in a State Interoperability 

Executive Committee (SIEC). FCC said that states play a central role in 

managing emergency communications and that state-level organizations 

are usually in control at large-scale events and disasters or multi-agency 

incidents. FCC also found that states are usually in the best position to 

coordinate with federal government emergency agencies. FCC said that 

SIEC administrative activities could include holding licenses, resolving 

licensing issues, and developing a statewide interoperability plan for the 

700 MHz band. Other SIEC responsibilities could include the creation and 

oversight of incident response protocols and the creation of chains of 

command for incident response and reporting. 

State and local officials recognize that the interoperability responsibilities 

that FCC identified for SIECs in the 700 MHz band are also applicable to 

interoperability channels in other frequency bands. However, FCC did not 

retroactively apply the SIEC concept to interoperability channels in the 

800 MHz band or in the below 512 MHz band nor did it apply the SIEC 

concept to the new 4.9 GHz band. The Commission also did not require 

Statewide Interoperable 

Communications 

Committees Offer 

Potential for Coordinated 

Statewide Planning 
Page 31 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

states to establish a SIEC because it found that some states already have a 

mechanism in place that could administer the interoperability channel, 

and requiring a SIEC would be duplicative. The Commission did provide 

that the administration of the 700 MHz interoperability channels defaults 

to Regional Planning Committees (RPC) should a state decide not to 

establish or maintain a SIEC for this purpose. Available data conflict on 

how many states have established SIECs or similar bodies, but do indicate 

that from 12 to 15 states did not implement a SIEC.26

The Public Safety National Coordination Committee, an FCC advisory 

body for the 700 MHz band, noted that SIECs are optional—there is no 

requirement that the states implement such committees. NCC 

recommended that FCC require all states to establish a SIEC or equivalent 

to provide each state with an identified central point of contact for 

information on that state’s interoperability capability. NCC, however, also 

expressed concerns about the extent of state control and the lack of a 

broad representation of local membership in the SIECs.27 NCC 

recommended to FCC that the name SIEC be changed to the Statewide 

Interoperability Executive Committee to be more inclusive of all agencies 

in the state. 

We found general support in the states that we visited for NCC’s 

recommendation to establish a Statewide Interoperability Executive 

Committee as the central point of contact for information on a state’s 

interoperability capability. A state official from California told us that 

California’s long history of collaboration in mutual aid communications 

activities was in part the basis for this NCC recommendation. According to 

officials of the Florida State Technology Office and local public safety 

officials, they support a central point of contact for statewide 

interoperability efforts. State of Washington officials said the 

 26FCC data show 38 states and the District of Columbia with SIECs or similar bodies, and 

12 states with RPCs assuming the SIEC role. However, PSWN data show 7 states with 

SIECs, 13 states with SIEC like committees, 15 states with statewide safety communication 

committees that have responsibilities broader than SIECs, and 15 states where RPCs have 

assumed SIEC responsibilities. 

27NCC, which had recommended SIECs at the state level to administer interoperability 

channels, concluded that some state governments may be using their SIECs to control all 

aspects of interoperability channels use rather than the administrative purposes as 

intended by FCC. In addition, NCC found that some states have expanded the role of their 

SIECs to include other state-level functions, such as procurement, and that, in the absence 

of FCC guidance, some states had designated SIECs without an appropriately broad range 

of public safety agency members. 
Page 32 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

recommendation appeared consistent with what they are doing in 

Washington. Local officials in the state of Washington told us that the term 

“statewide” is inclusive—it represents both the state and local 

governments interests. 

The states we visited or contacted were in the early stages of formulating 

their SIECs, and their roles and responsibilities are still under 

development. 

• Recently the state of California established the California Statewide 

Interoperability Executive Committee. The Office of Emergency Services 

sponsors the Committee, which is responsible for setting technical and 

operational standards for all existing and planned public safety 

interoperability frequencies in California. Committee membership is 

designed to recognize the broad diversity of local communications needs 

because California has long recognized that responsibility for and 

command of an incident lies with the jurisdiction where the emergency or 

disaster occurs, which in the vast majority of incidents is the local 

government. Thus, a majority of the Committee’s 35 members are 

representatives of local government, followed by the state agencies that 

support local government, and the federal agencies that support state and 

local government. Additionally, two California RPCs and the Association 

of Public-Safety Communications Officials have representation on the 

Committee. The Committee is supported by 9 to 10 working groups 

addressing various aspects of interoperability governance. California has 

several state communications systems and the coordination of these 

systems will be addressed by a Committee working group. 

• In March 2003, the state of Florida established the Florida Executive 

Interoperable Technologies Committee. The Committee’s membership 

includes state and local government officials from each of the seven 

Domestic Security regions in Florida and is chaired by the State 

Technology Office. The Committee’s role is still evolving. The Committee 

and State Technology Office are responsible for the oversight and 

management of all interoperable communications issues (voice and data). 

The State Technology Office manages the interoperable radio frequency 

resources for the state. Furthermore, the state has identified the need for a 

single, comprehensive mutual aid plan and assigned the task of developing 

the plan to the Committee. However, the Committee’s role in reviewing all 

state and local communications plans is still not determined. 

• The Washington State Interoperability Executive Committee, formed by 

state legislation enacted on July 1, 2003, is a permanent subcommittee of 

the Information Services Board. The legislation specified membership for 
Page 33 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

state agencies and associations representing city government, county 

government, local government fire departments, Sheriffs and Police 

Chiefs, and emergency managers. Federal agencies were not included as 

voting members of the Committee, which issued an interim public safety 

communications plan on March 30, 2004. The interim plan, developed 

using a recent inventory of state communications systems, outlines 

various potential solutions and the implementation timeline. These are 

interim solutions and did not reflect local governments’ concerns. 

However, the plan will be updated to incorporate local government survey 

responses. A final plan is due by December 31, 2004. The Committee 

intends to incorporate the existing mutual aid plans into the new statewide 

interoperability plan. 

• In Georgia, the state did not opt to form a State Interoperability Executive 

Committee. Instead, the 700 MHz RPC Interoperability Committee is 

responsible for managing all radio frequency bands on behalf of the state 

of Georgia. 

A comprehensive statewide interoperable plan can provide the guiding 

framework for achieving defined goals for interoperability within a state 

and for regions within and across states (such as Kansas City, Mo. and 

Kansas City, Kans.). NCC recommended that all SIECs prepare an 

interoperability plan that is filed with FCC and updated when substantive 

changes are made or at least every three years. NCC also recommended to 

FCC that SIECs, for Homeland Security reasons, should administer all 

interoperability channels in a state, not merely those in the 700 MHz band. 

According to NCC, each state should have a central point identified for 

information on a state’s interoperability capability. 

None of the four states we visited had finished preparation and funding of 

their state interoperability plans. Washington and Florida were preparing 

statewide interoperability plans at the time we visited. Georgia officials 

said they have a state interoperability plan but that it is not funded. 

However, one other state we contacted, Missouri, has extended SIEC 

responsibility for interoperability channels beyond the 700 MHz band.28

The Missouri SIEC has also designated standard operational and technical 

guidelines as conditions for the use of these bands. SIEC requires 

applicants to sign a MOU agreeing to these conditions in order to use these 

 28Missouri SIEC responsibility includes FCC’s designated interoperability channels (except 

for certain legacy mutual aid channels) in the VHF and UHF bands. 

Content and Scope of 

Statewide Interoperability 

Plans Not Established 
Page 34 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

channels in the state of Missouri. The Missouri SIEC Chairman said the 

state developed its operational and technical guidelines because FCC had 

not established its own guidelines for these interoperability channels in 

the VHF and UHF bands. The chairman said Missouri borders on eight 

other states and expressed concern that these states will develop different 

guidelines that are incompatible with the Missouri guidelines. He said FCC 

was notified of Missouri’s actions but has not taken action to date. In 

another example, California intends to prepare a statewide interoperability 

plan. California’s SIEC is re-examining California’s previous stove piped 

programs of communications interoperability (separate systems for law 

enforcement, fire, etc.) in light of the need to maintain tactical channels 

within disciplines while promoting cross-discipline interoperability. 

FCC-designated frequency coordinators expressed support for a 

comprehensive interoperability plan in July 2002. The Commission had 

suggested that the frequency coordinators for the VHF and UHF bands 

develop an interoperability plan for these bands. FCC said it envisioned 

that the coordinators would jointly develop an interoperability plan for the 

management and nationwide use of these interoperability channels. The 

frequency coordinators in a joint response rejected FCC’s overture, stating 

that the actual management and operational guidelines for the VHF and 

UHF frequencies should be integrated with other interoperability 

frequencies in the 700 and 800 MHz bands, and with other interoperability 

channels in spectrum identified by NTIA for interoperability with the 

federal government. The frequency coordinators said operational and 

management planning should include all of these channels to better 

coordinate future assignment and use and that NCC and SIECs were better 

vehicles for developing the guidelines requested by FCC. 

In some cases, for example, responding to such major events as tornadoes 

or wildfires, state and local government first responders also require 

interoperable communications with federal agencies. According to OMB, 

seven federal agencies have significant roles to play in public safety 

communications, emergency/incident response and management, and law 

enforcement. These agencies are the Departments of Homeland Security, 

Defense, Energy, the Interior, Justice, Health and Human Services, and 

Agriculture. 

As mentioned previously, FCC designated frequency coordinators told 

FCC that planning for interoperability channels should include federal 

spectrum designated for interoperability with state and local governments. 

We found several examples in our field work that support inclusion of 

Coordination of Federal 

and State Interoperable 

Frequencies in Statewide 

Plans 
Page 35 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

federal agencies in future state and local planning for interoperable 

communications. For example, a Washington State official told us that 

regional systems within the state do not have links to federal 

communications systems and assets. In another example, according to an 

emergency preparedness official in Seattle, a study of radio interoperable 

communications in a medical center also found that federal agencies such 

as the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) are not integrated into 

hospital or health communications systems, and other federal agencies 

have no radio infrastructure to support and participate in a health 

emergency such as a bio-terrorism event. He told us that he has no idea 

what the federal communications plan is in the event of a disaster; and he 

said he does not know how to talk to federal health officials responding to 

an incident or what the federal government needs when they arrive. 

Local officials in Washington State also told us that communications and 

coordination between civil and military emergency communication 

organizations need improvement. These officials expressed concern that 

the Department of Defense has not fully coordinated with local officials to 

ensure that local jurisdictions can communicate with Defense. According 

to the Washington National Guard Civil Support Team and emergency 

management officials, the Guard Civil Support Team first responders can 

exchange radios with other first responders in order to communicate. In 

addition, the Civil Support Team can communicate on all frequency bands 

using a Navy Unified Command Communications Suite. Georgia National 

Guard officials said that they do not participate in the All Hazards Council 

planning process to coordinate interoperable communications. 

The federal government is developing a system that could improve 

interoperable communications on a limited basis between state and 

federal government agencies. The Integrated Wireless Network (IWN) is a 

radio system that is intended to replace the existing radio systems for the 

DOJ, Treasury, and DHS. IWN is an exclusive federal law enforcement 

communications system that is intended to interact and interface with 

state and local systems as needed but will not replace these systems. 

According to DOJ officials, IWN is intended to improve federal to state/ 

local interoperability but will not address interoperability of state and 

local systems. 

However, federal interoperability with state and local wireless 

communications systems is hindered because NTIA and FCC control 

different frequencies in the VHF and UHF bands. To enhance 

interoperability, NTIA has identified 40 federal government frequencies 

that can be used by state and local public safety agencies for joint law 
Page 36 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

enforcement and incident response purposes.29 FCC, however, designated 

different frequencies for interoperability in the VHF band and in the UHF 

band from spectrum it controls for use by state and local public safety 

agencies. 

In addition, complicated FCC licensing and coordination requirements 

may further limit effective use of federal frequencies by state and local 

agencies. FCC officials told us in response to our draft report that FCC 

rules are consistent with what NTIA and FCC agreed to regarding use of 

federal spectrum by non-federal agencies generally. However, as a 

condition for their use of the federal VHF and UHF frequencies, FCC 

requires individual state and local public safety applicants to develop a 

written agreement between each nonfederal agency and a federal sponsor 

and to use this agreement to obtain an FCC license. FCC regulations 

permit federal agencies to use 700 MHz band public safety frequencies 

under its control if the Commission finds such use necessary, and the 

state/local government licensee approves the sharing arrangement. 

PSWN suggested using SIECs to perform the necessary planning and 

coordination between FCC and NTIA for joint use of their separately 

controlled frequencies. PSWN noted that the federal government 

maintains a significant presence in many states, and that interoperable 

communications must cut across all levels of government. Thus, PSWN 

said it is essential that NTIA and federal entities and federal spectrum be 

involved in the SIEC planning process from the beginning. NCC 

recommended that FCC require the use of standard MOUs and sharing 

agreements where licensee authorizes federal agencies and other 

authorized users to use its frequencies. FCC noted that respondents to its 

notice seeking comments on NCC proposals were divided and that 

requiring a formal rule could only serve to increase administrative burden 

on the states, many of whom may be poised to implement the MOUs and 

sharing agreements or similar documents voluntarily. Thus, FCC decided 

not to require the use of MOUs but strongly recommended that states have 

the relevant SIEC or other entity responsible for the administration of the 

interoperability channels use MOUs. 

 29NTIA states that these frequencies may not be used to meet day-to-day communications 

needs of nonfederal public safety agencies. 
Page 37 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

Total one-time replacement of the nation’s communications systems is 

very unlikely, due to the costs involved. A 1998 study cited the 

replacement value of the existing public safety communication 

infrastructure nationwide at $18.3 billion.30 DHS officials said this estimate 

is much higher when infrastructure and training costs are taken into 

account. Furthermore, DHS recently estimated that reaching an 

accelerated goal of communications interoperability will require a major 

investment of several billion dollars within the next 5 to 10 years. As a 

result of these extraordinary costs, federal funding is but one of several 

resources state and local agencies must use in order to address these 

costs. Given these high costs, the development of an interoperable 

communications plan is vital to useful, non-duplicative spending. 

However, the federal funding assistance programs to state and local 

governments do not fully support regional planning for communications 

interoperability. Federal grants that support interoperability have 

inconsistent requirements to tie funding to interoperable communications 

plans. In addition, uncoordinated federal and state level grant reviews 

limit the government’s ability to ensure that federal funds are used to 

effectively support improved regional and statewide communications 

systems. Additional barriers to supporting regional planning, such as 

fragmented funding structures, limitations on time frames to develop and 

implement plans, and limited support for long-term planning are discussed 

in appendix V. 

Local, state and federal officials agree that regional communications plans 

should be developed to guide decisions on how to use federal funds for 

interoperable communications; however, the current funding requirements 

do not support this planning process. Although recent grant requirements 

have encouraged jurisdictions to take a regional approach to planning, 

current federal first responder grants are inconsistent in their 

requirements to tie funding to interoperable communications plans. States 

and locals are not required to provide an interoperable communications 

plan as a prerequisite to receiving some federal grant funds. As a result, 

there is no assurance that federal funds are being used to support a welldeveloped strategy for improving interoperability. For example, the fiscal 

year 2004 HSG or UASI grants require states or selected jurisdictions to 

conduct a needs assessment and submit a Homeland Security Strategy to 

 30Land Mobile Radio Replacement Cost Study, Public Safety Wireless Network Program, 

Fairfax, VA., June 1998. 

Federal Grant 

Structure Does Not 

Fully Support 

Statewide Planning 

Federal Grants 

Encouraged a “Regional” 

Approach to Planning, but 

Lacked Requirements for 

Interoperability 

Communications Plans 
Page 38 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

ODP.31 However, the required strategies are high-level and broad in nature. 

They do not require that project narratives or a detailed communications 

plan be submitted by grantees prior to receiving grant funds. 

In another example, fiscal year 2003 funding provided by the Office of 

Community Oriented Policing Services Program (COPS) and FEMA for 

Interoperable Communications Equipment did not require that a 

communications plan be completed prior to receiving grant funds. 

However, grantees were required to provide documentation that they were 

actively engaged in a planning process and a multijurisdictional and 

multidisciplinary project narrative was required. In addition to variations 

in requirements to create communications interoperability plans, federal 

grants also lack consistency in defining what “regional” body should 

conduct planning. 

State and local officials also said that the short grant application deadlines 

for recent first responder grants limited their ability to develop cohesive 

communications plans or perform a coordinated review of local requests. 

Federal officials acknowledged that the limited submission timeframes 

presents barriers to first responders for developing plans prior to receiving 

funds. For example, guidance in several federal grant programs—the 

Homeland Security Grant, UASI grant, COPs and FEMA communication 

equipment grants, and Assistance to Firefighters Grant—allow states only 

30 or 60 days from the date of grant announcement to submit a grant 

proposal. These time frames are sometimes driven by appropriations 

language or by the timing of the appropriations enactment. 

Furthermore, many grants have been awarded to state and locals for 

communications interoperability that have 1 or 2 year performance 

periods, and according to state and local officials, do not support longterm solutions. For example, Assistance to Fire Fighters Grants, COPS and 

FEMA’s Interoperable Communications Equipment Grants, and National 

Urban Search and Rescue grants all have 1-year performance periods.32

 31In fiscal year 2004, this grant program’s name changed from State Homeland Security 

Grant to Homeland Security Grant Program. The new program includes three different 

grant programs. 

32In their technical comments on a draft of this report, COPS officials said the performance 

period for the FY 2003 Interoperable Communications Technology Equipment and the 

COPS Interoperable Communications Technology Program have a 1 year time period but 

that no-cost extensions of time were available to grantees on a case-by-case basis to 

accommodate unavoidable delays. 

Grant Submissions and 

Performance Period Time 

Frames Also Present 

Challenges to Short- and 

Long-Term Planning 
Page 39 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

UASI, HSG program, and Local Law Enforcement Block Grants have 

2-year performance periods. 

The federal and state governments lack a coordinated grant review 

process to ensure that funds allocated to local governments are used for 

communication projects that complement each other and add to overall 

statewide and national interoperability. Federal and state officials said that 

each agency reviews its own set of applications and projects, without 

coordination with other agencies. As a result, grants could be given to 

bordering jurisdictions that propose conflicting interoperability solutions. 

In fiscal year 2003, federal officials from COPS and FEMA attempted to 

eliminate awarding funds to conflicting communication systems within 

bordering jurisdictions by coordinating their review of interoperable 

communications equipment grant proposals. However, COPS and FEMA 

are only two of several federal sources of funds for communications 

interoperability. 

In an attempt to address this challenge, in 2003 SAFECOM coordinated 

with other agencies to create the document Recommended Federal Grant 

Guidance, Public Safety Communications and Interoperability Grants, 

which lays out standard grant requirements for planning, building, and 

training for interoperable communications systems. The guidance is 

designed to advise federal agencies on who is eligible for the first 

responder interoperable communications grants, the purposes for which 

grant funds can be used, and eligibility specifications for applicants.33 The 

guidance recommends standard minimum requirements, such as 

requirements to “...define the objectives of what the applicant is ultimately 

trying to accomplish and how the proposed project would fit into an 

overall effort to increase interoperability, as well as identify potential 

partnerships for agreements.” Additionally, the guidance recommends, but 

does not require, that applicants establish a governance group consisting 

of local, tribal, state, and federal entities from relevant public safety 

disciplines and purchase interoperable equipment that is compliant with 

phase one of Project-25 standards. SAFECOM has also recently sponsored 

the formation of the Federal Interagency Coordination Committee (FICC), 

 33In response to a draft report, DHS said that, in addition to outlining the eligibility for grant 

dollars and the purposes for which federal dollars can be used, the SAFECOM grant 

guidance provides consensus guidelines for implementing a wireless communications 

system. DHS said this guidance is useful in directing all agencies towards interoperability 

goals, even if they are not specifically applying for federal funding. 

No Coordinated Federal or 

State Grant Review Exists 

to Ensure Funds Are Used 

to Improve Regional or 

Statewide 

Communications 

Interoperability 
Page 40 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

which consists of a federal grant coordination working-group. Federal 

officials said that the council will assist in shaping the common grant 

guidance for Federal initiatives involving public safety communications. 

Despite federal efforts within DHS to synthesize federal grants, various 

agencies have statutory language which make it difficult to coordinate 

their use. For example, both SAFECOM and COPS officials said that 

certain statutory provisions underlying the grant programs presented 

barriers to the coordination efforts of COPS, FEMA, and SAFECOM to 

consolidate the grant application process for the 2003 Interoperable 

Communications Equipment grants. COPS and FEMA coordinated their 

application process for the grants and used sections of the SAFECOM 

grant guidance to guide their application requirements. COPS and FEMA 

officials said that the combined COPS and FEMA application process was 

intended to maximize the use of funds and reduce duplication and 

competition between the two agencies’ Interoperability grants. Both COPS 

and SAFECOM officials explained that COPS and FEMA encountered 

difficulty in creating a combined grant application process because the 

COPS grant required a twenty-five percent match while the FEMA grant 

did not have such a requirement. However, COPS officials said FEMA 

added a twenty-five percent match of “in-kind” resources to its grant 

requirements in order to reduce competition between the COPS and 

FEMA grant programs. 

The House Committee on Appropriations report for DHS’s fiscal year 2004 

appropriation states that the Committee is aware of numerous federal 

programs addressing communications interoperability through planning, 

building, upgrading, and maintaining public safety communication 

systems, among other purposes. The Committee directed that all DHS 

grant programs issuing grants for the above purposes incorporate the 

SAFECOM guidance and coordinate with the SAFECOM program when 

awarding funding. To better coordinate the government’s efforts, the 

Committee also encouraged all other federal programs issuing grants for 

the above purposes to use the guidelines outlined by SAFECOM in their 

grant programs. However, SAFECOM officials said that they have no 

enforcement authority to require other agencies to use this guidance in 

their funding decision or to require agencies to provide grant program 

information to them for use in their database. 

States are also initiating actions to address the lack of a centralized statelevel grant review process. For example, the state of Washington is 

developing a centralized grant structure to review local requests for 

communications funds against a statewide interoperable communications 
Page 41 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

plan that is being developed by their SIEC. The funding process is shown 

in figure 2. 

Figure 2: Washington SIEC’s Structure to Review Local Requests for 

Communications Funds 

A fundamental barrier to successfully addressing interoperable 

communications problems for public safety has been the lack of effective, 

collaborative, interdisciplinary, and intergovernmental planning. 

Jurisdictional boundaries, unique public safety agency missions, and 

cultural differences among first responder organizations have often 

fostered barriers that hinder cooperation and collaboration. No one first 

responder agency, jurisdiction, or level of government can “fix” the 

nation’s interoperability problems, which vary across the nation and often 

cross first responder agency and jurisdictional boundaries. Changes in 

spectrum available to federal, state, and local public safety agencies—

primarily a federal responsibility conducted through the FCC and the 

NTIA—changes in technology, and the evolving missions and 

responsibilities of public safety agencies in an age of terrorism all highlight 

the ever-changing environment in which interoperable communications 

needs and solutions must be addressed. Interdisciplinary, 

intergovernmental, and multijurisdictional partnership and collaboration 

are essential for effectively addressing interoperability shortcomings. 

Conclusions 

Governor

EMC Committee on Terrorism

(made up of state and local first 

responders and members of the 

Interagency Board for 

Standardization (IAB)

Emergency Management Council (EMC)

(made up of EMD, federal, state and local 

first responders)

Local request for grant 

funds

Domestic Security Executive 

Group

(members of the governor’s 

Homeland Security Committee)

State Interoperable Executive 

Committee (SIEC)

(made up of state and local 

public safety officials across all 

disciplines)

Source: Washington State Emergency Management Division Officials.
Page 42 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

The current status of wireless interoperable communications across the 

nation—including current capabilities and the scope and severity of 

problems that may exist—has not been determined. Long-term prospects 

for achieving functional interoperable communications are hindered by 

the lack of an institutionalized process—at the federal, state, regional, or 

local levels—to systematically identify and address current shortcomings. 

The federal government can offer leadership and support for state efforts 

to develop and implement statewide interoperability plans for achieving 

specific interoperability goals. The federal government is best positioned 

to address nationwide issues, such as setting national requirements, 

developing a national architecture, establishing national performance 

standards, and the development of national databases and common 

nationwide nomenclature for interoperability channels. Moreover, acting 

through the FCC and the NTIA, the federal government alone has the 

authority to address public safety spectrum allocation, including 

expanding or altering current spectrum allocations. The federal 

government can also play a major role through such means as technical 

assistance and grant guidance in supporting state efforts to prepare 

comprehensive statewide interoperability plans for developing federal, 

state, and local communications systems that can communicate with one 

another as needed and as authorized. However, developing and 

implementing effective statewide plans that draw on the perspectives and 

expertise of the federal government and local public safety agencies and 

jurisdictions is not a task that can be completed in a matter of weeks. 

The federal government’s ability to provide consistent, focused, long-term 

attention to interoperable communications needs has been hampered by 

the lack of a designated agency with the authority and ability to coordinate 

the wide-variety of federal efforts that exist. OMB has described 

SAFECOM as the umbrella program to unify and coordinate the federal 

government’s interoperable communications efforts. Although SAFECOM 

has made progress in developing grant guidance, issuing interoperable 

communications requirements, beginning the process of assessing current 

interoperable communications capability, and otherwise coordinating 

federal efforts, it is dependent upon other federal agencies for funding and 

their willingness to cooperate. The Department of Homeland Security has 

recently announced the establishment of the Office of Interoperability and 

Compatibility—of which SAFECOM would be a part—as the focal point 

for coordinating federal efforts for wireless and other functional 

interoperability. However, the exact nature of its roles and responsibilities 

are still being determined. Moreover, this office would still face many of 

the challenges that SAFECOM has faced in coordinating the 
Page 43 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

interoperability efforts of a variety of federal agencies outside of DHS, 

such as the FCC and the Departments of Justice and Commerce. 

With federal leadership and support and local participation and support, 

states can serve as a key focus for efforts to assess and improve 

interoperable communications by developing and implementing statewide 

bodies to assess interoperability issues and guide efforts to remedy 

identified problems through statewide interoperability plans. 

Federal assistance grants to state and local governments do not fully 

support statewide planning for wireless communications interoperability. 

Specifically, federal grants do not fully support regional planning and lack 

requirements to tie federal assistance to an approved statewide 

interoperability plan. Interoperability plans for public safety 

communications systems, once prepared, should guide federal funding 

assistance programs to state and local governments. 

To improve interoperable wireless communications for first responders, 

we recommend that the Secretary of the Department of Homeland 

Security ensure that the following actions are taken: 

• In coordination with the FCC and the NTIA, continue development of a 

nationwide database of all interoperable public safety communications 

frequencies, establish a common nomenclature for those frequencies, and 

establish clear timeframes to complete both efforts; 

• In consultation with state and local governments, determine the current 

status of wireless public safety interoperable telecommunications across 

the nation by assessing interoperability in specific locations against 

interoperability requirements that can be measured, and assist states in 

assessing interoperability in their states against those requirements; 

• Through DHS grant guidance encourage states to establish a single 

statewide body responsible for interoperable communications and that 

this body shall prepare a single comprehensive statewide interoperability 

plan for federal, state, and local communication systems in all frequency 

bands. The statewide interoperability plan shall be based upon the 

nationwide standard frequency database and use the standard nationwide 

nomenclature for interoperability channels, once they are developed; and 

• At the appropriate time, require through DHS grant guidance that federal 

grant funding for communications equipment shall be approved only upon 

Recommendations for 

Executive Action 
Page 44 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

certification by the statewide body responsible for interoperable 

communications that such grant applications are in conformance with 

statewide interoperability plans. DHS should give states adequate time to 

develop these focal points and plans and to provide guidance on 

development of such plans. 

We further recommend that the Director, OMB, in conjunction with DHS, 

review the interoperability mission and functions now performed by 

SAFECOM and establish these functions as a long term program with 

adequate coordination authority and funding. 

We sent a draft of this report to the Departments of Commerce, Defense, 

Homeland Security, and Justice, the Federal Communications 

Commission, and the Office of Management and Budget. We did not 

receive comments from OMB or the Department of Defense. The other 

agencies provided technical comments that we have incorporated into the 

final report as appropriate. In addition, we received written comments 

from the Department of Commerce and the Department of Homeland 

Security. The Department of Commerce said in a letter dated July 12, 2004 

that it issued two reports on spectrum policy in June, 2004 (See appendix 

VI.) We added this information to the report text as appropriate. 

The Department of Homeland Security provided written comments on a 

draft of this report in a July 8, 2004 letter, which is reprinted in Appendix 

VII. With respect to our first recommendation, DHS said it is developing a 

nationwide database of interoperable public safety communications 

frequencies in its fiscal year 2004 program as part of its support to the 

Computer Assisted Pre-coordination Resource and Database System 

(CAPRAD). DHS also said it plans to work with the National Public Safety 

Telecommunications Council (NPSTC) on a common nomenclature across 

public safety disciplines and jurisdictions. DHS did not mention 

coordination with the FCC and the NTIA on these matters; the FCC 

regulates state and local public safety wireless communications, and the 

NTIA regulates federal public safety spectrum. Either or both the FCC and 

the NTIA may also take action on the development of national databases 

and common nomenclature. DHS also only refers to the use of this 

database in the 700 MHz and 4.9 GHz bands: we believe it should be used 

for interoperable frequencies in all federal, state, and local public safety 

bands. We have amended our conclusions and recommendation to note 

the importance that DHS coordinate with the FCC and the NTIA on these 

matters across all interoperable public safety communications 

frequencies. 

Agency Comments 

and Our Evaluation 
Page 45 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

With respect to our second recommendation, DHS said it is developing a 

methodology to establish a national baseline of public safety 

communication and interoperability capabilities with input from the public 

safety community. We believe that DHS should also consult directly with 

state and local governments in developing requirements and assessing 

interoperability in the individual states against those requirements. We 

have amended our recommendation to include appropriate language. 

With respect to our third recommendation, DHS noted that it had created 

coordinated grant guidance that encourages grant applicants to consider 

systems requirements to ensure interoperability with systems used by 

other disciplines and at other levels of government. DHS also discusses a 

methodology it developed in conjunction with the state of Virginia for 

development of a statewide communications system that ensures input 

from local levels, and states that this methodology will be available 

through the SAFECOM grant guidance for states interested in 

implementing a statewide system. However, the DHS letter did not directly 

address our recommendation about encouraging states to create statewide 

bodies for interoperable communications that would establish statewide 

interoperability plans for federal, state, and local communications systems 

in all frequency bands. 

With respect to our fourth recommendation, DHS discusses a “bottomsup” approach to development of a meaningful governance structure and a 

strategic plan for statewide communications and interoperability 

developed with its partner, the state of Virginia. However, DHS ‘ comments 

do not directly address our recommendations that DHS grant guidance 

require at the appropriate time that federal grant funds for 

communications equipment be approved on condition that such grants are 

in accordance with statewide interoperability plans. 

We plan to send copies of this report to relevant congressional committees 

and subcommittees, to the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Director of 

the Office of Management and Budget, the Chairman of the Federal 

Communications Commission and other interested parties. In addition, the 

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

http://www.gao.gov. 
Page 46 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

If you have any questions about this report or wish to discuss it further, 

please contact me at (202) 512-8777 or Thomas James, Assistant Director 

at (202) 512-2996. Key contributors to this report are listed in appendix 

VIII. 

William O. Jenkins, Jr. 

Director, Homeland Security 

 and Justice Issues 
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology 

Page 47 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

To examine the availability of data on interoperable wireless 

communications across the nation, we reviewed our November 6, 2003, 

testimony where we said that the first challenge to addressing first 

responder wireless communications interoperability issues was to clearly 

identify and define the problem and where we identified the absence of 

effective coordinated planning and collaboration as the fundamental 

barrier in addressing interoperability issues. We held further discussions 

on these problems with state and local officials about these issues during 

our field work in California , Florida, Georgia, and Washington. We also 

discussed these issues with state and local officials from Illinois, Indiana, 

Kentucky, Missouri, Ohio and during various public safety conferences 

and follow-up meetings. On the basis of these discussions, we developed a 

framework to analyze these issues. (See fig. 1.) We also held discussions 

with relevant federal officials about identifying and defining interoperable 

communications of first responders and about the applicability of this 

framework in a proposed federal nationwide survey of public safety 

wireless interoperability capabilities and requirements. 

To examine potential roles that the federal government can play in 

improving interoperability of first responder wireless communications, we 

met with officials of key federal agencies about their roles in setting and 

implementing policy on interoperable communications for first 

responders. These agencies were the Office of Management and Budget 

(OMB), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Department of 

Defense (DOD), Department of Justice (DOJ), Department of Commerce, 

and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). We obtained and 

reviewed relevant documentation about federal programs and projects 

addressing interoperable communications. We also interviewed state and 

local officials to obtain their views about the role the federal government 

should play in addressing interoperability issues. 

To examine potential roles that local and state governments can play in 

improving interoperability of first responder wireless communications, we 

interviewed state and local officials in California, Florida, Georgia, and 

Washington and staff of the National Governors Association. We chose 

these four states because we had information that they were active in 

addressing interoperability issues and because California and Washington 

provided an opportunity to examine specific interoperability issues that 

might be presented by national borders with Mexico and Canada. We also 

met with public safety officials at meetings of (1) the National Public 

Safety Telecommunications Council; (2) the Public Safety Wireless 

Network program office; and (3) the Public Safety National Coordination 

Council, an FCC committee that advised the Commission on spectrum 

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology 
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology 

Page 48 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

policy decisions for public safety interoperable communications. We 

obtained and reviewed reports, testimonies, and other documents relating 

to public safety wireless communications and identified examples of state 

and local government roles in organizing and providing for first responder 

communications. We evaluated these examples of state and local 

government roles for potential application to other state and local 

governments. We also interviewed relevant federal officials about 

potential state and local government roles in improving first responder 

wireless communications interoperability issues. 

To examine how the variety of federal grants for state and local first 

responders may encourage or inhibit the assessment of interoperable 

problems and the development of comprehensive plans to address these 

problems, we selected key federal grant programs that fund projects 

supporting state and local government first responder communications 

systems and reviewed program documentation and appropriations 

language for policies affecting interoperable communications. We also 

obtained relevant legislation and interviewed federal, state, and local 

officials to obtain their views on these issues. 

To obtain information on cross-border communications issues, we visited 

San Diego, California, and Olympia, Washington, and talked to appropriate 

state and local officials. We also discussed these issues with federal 

officials at the Department of Commerce and FCC. We obtained and 

reviewed relevant documentation from the local, state, and federal 

officials. 
Appendix II: Cross Border Spectrum Planning 

Page 49 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

Two issues related to radio spectrum allocation affect public safety 

communications across the United States borders with Canada and 

Mexico (1) the lack of coordinated cross border spectrum planning and 

(2) radio interference to users of the allocated spectrum. The United 

States, Canada, and Mexico are addressing these issues through various 

negotiations. 

Radio frequency spectrum allocation has not kept pace with technology 

and demand. The process used to allocate spectrum over the years has 

resulted in a problem that is still unresolved, according to the Association 

of Public-Safety Communications Officials (APCO). One official said past 

decisions in United States spectrum policy were based on the overall 

demands for spectrum and the limitations of technology at the time. 

According to this official, these decisions made sense individually, but 

collectively those decisions have a negative impact on the current ability 

of public safety agencies to interoperate. (See fig. 3.) 

Figure 3: Current Public Safety Spectrum Allocations 

The radio frequency spectrum within the United States extends from 

9 KHz to 300 GHz and is allocated to more than 450 frequency bands. The 

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulates the use of 

frequencies for state and local governments and has allocated certain 

portions of the spectrum for public safety agencies. Initially, almost all 

public safety communications were confined to the low end of the 

frequency range, but as technology advanced, higher frequencies became 

possible, offering a temporary solution for congestion and crowding. The 

result—public safety operates in 10 separate bands, which has added 

Appendix II: Cross Border Spectrum 

Planning 

Radio Frequency 

Spectrum Band 

Structure 

25-50 220-222 764-776

794-808

150-174 450-470

470-512

806-824

851-889

MHz 4940

4990

4.9 GHz

New public safety

broadband spectrum

Source: National Task Force on Interoperability, When They Can't Talk Lives are Lost, February 2003.
Appendix II: Cross Border Spectrum Planning 

Page 50 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

capabilities, but which has also caused the fragmentation that 

characterizes the public safety spectrum today and make it difficult for 

different agencies and jurisdictions to communicate. 

According to National Telecommunications and Information 

Administration (NTIA), Canada and Mexico have developed spectrum use 

and rules independent of that of the United States. In particular, Canada 

uses the fixed and mobile bands contained in the band 138-174 MHz for all 

users, including military, civilian, and government. Canada also uses a 

different channeling structure than the United States and is in the process 

of narrow banding portions on a different schedule than the United States. 

Moreover, the majority of the Canadian population resides in the United 

States/Canadian border area. Therefore, it is very difficult for the United 

States to identify and coordinate frequencies for new uses in the border 

area. The United States/Mexican border presents different problems in 

that neither country is aware of the operations authorized by the other 

country in the border area because there is no formal agreement to 

exchange data or coordinate use. 

According to FCC, frequency band plans are also not consistent along the 

United States borders with Canada and Mexico. For example, the 

Canadian band plan for 800 MHz is different than the Mexican band plan 

primarily because of demographic differences in the border regions. 

According to FCC, some degree of harmonized spectrum has been 

achieved in the 800 MHz and 700 MHz public safety bands, but 

interoperability in the VHF and UHF bands is difficult to achieve because 

these bands are highly encumbered and have been operating for many 

years under different channel plans and different uses. State and local 

officials in Washington state also said they expect that the 700 MHz band 

will not be available for the foreseeable future along the Canadian border 

because Canada currently restricts use of the 700 MHz band for television 

broadcast purposes only. According to these officials, Canadian 

authorities have not initiated a process to relocate the television 

broadcasters out of the 700 MHz band. In addition, local Washington 

officials said that communication barriers result from border counties 

using different frequencies and equipment than one another. 

Interference among users of radio frequency spectrum has been a driving 

force in the management of spectrum at the national and international 

levels for many years. Interference among these users can occur when two 

or more radio signals interact in a manner that disrupts or degrades the 

Cross Border 

Planning 

Cross Border Radio 

Interference 
Appendix II: Cross Border Spectrum Planning 

Page 51 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

transmission and reception of messages. Our work in California and 

Washington state highlighted interference issues with United 

States/Mexico and United States/Canada. For example: 

• Unlicensed radio users in Mexico cause interference to United States 

public safety agencies. For example, some Mexico radio users interfere 

with United States public safety communication frequencies because 

Mexico does not have complementary regulations governing its frequency 

use, according to local California public safety officials. Furthermore, in 

the 162-174 MHz band, there is also a problem with interference to federal 

government operations. Many of these interference cases involve 

unauthorized stations in Mexico. 

• According to local public safety officials in California, Mexico does not 

limit the frequency power that radios can emit. Mexican taxi radio users 

can emit enough power to force public safety radio repeaters in California 

to open up, and taxis can use them to make their radio calls. For example, 

San Diego County was forced to switch from their UHF and VHF radio 

systems to a more expensive 800 MHZ system, in order to operate without 

interference. In addition, Imperial County has 30 VHF frequencies 

potentially available for use but can only use two of them because of 

interference from Mexico. 

• Interference is also an issue along the Canadian border because spectrum 

policies in the United States and Canada are not aligned. United Statesdevised solutions will not be able to be used in the shared Canadian area, 

according to local Washington State officials. 

Efforts are underway by the United States to address cross border 

problems with Canada and Mexico. According to an NTIA official, NTIA 

expects in the long term that agreements will be made with both Canada 

and Mexico that will provide equal segments in specified frequency bands 

that will be available for exclusive use by each administration. This type of 

arrangement will mitigate the problems associated with different uses, 

different channeling plans, and different plans for future use. The official 

said NTIA is now involved in negotiations with both countries to develop 

this type of arrangement and that both Canada and Mexico are in 

agreement with this approach. He said that the time to accomplish the 

migration of existing use from the segments designated to the other 

administration is the main factor that must be addressed for successful 

completion of these efforts. 

Efforts to Address 

Cross Border Issues 
Appendix II: Cross Border Spectrum Planning 

Page 52 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

In the short-term, NTIA plans to hold meetings with the Canadian 

government about four times a year to complete the negotiation of 

segmenting certain bands, to improve coordination procedures, to identify 

channels for shared use, and to identify common interference prediction 

techniques. With Mexico, NTIA plans in the near term to meet with a 

Mexican delegation to negotiate protocols involving the segmentation of 

certain land-mobile bands. NTIA also plans to participate in meetings of 

the Joint Commission,1

 which meets twice a year to address interference 

problems between stations of both countries. 

FCC is also in the initial stages of forming an agreement with Canada on 

the use of public safety spectrum in the 700 MHz band, which will include 

a channel(s) to be used for mutual aid and interoperability. At this time, 

Mexico has not allocated the 700 MHz band for public safety. In other 

bands where public safety spectrum is not harmonized, agreements 

typically define shared use of spectrum, including power limitations to 

prevent interference across the border. 

One question of interest to the Congress is whether a single nationwide 

frequency should be designated for public safety in the United States and 

as it relates to the United States borders with Canada and Mexico. Both 

FCC and NTIA told us that sufficient bands exist for state and local public 

safety. FCC said that currently five mutual aid frequencies in the 800 MHz 

band are included in agreements with Canada and Mexico, with the 

possibility of additional channel(s) in a future agreement with Canada in 

the 700 MHz band. Similarly, an NTIA official told us there are several 

interoperable frequencies in the 162 MHz to 174 MHz band and the 406-420 

MHz band for state and local public safety.2

 1

The U.S.-Mexico Joint Commission on Resolution of Radio Interference is also known as 

the CMERAR in Spanish, the Joint Commission, or the Mixed Commission. The Joint 

Commission’s principal mission is to resolve interference cases between U.S./Mexican 

users along our common borders. The CMERAR typically meets twice a year, and the CoChair of the U.S. Section is the Chief of FCCs Enforcement Bureau. Working groups meet 

on an as-needed basis and deal with interference cases on a local level. 

2

The Department of Homeland Security in its written response to a draft of this report 

noted that the actual UHF band is 406.1 MHz to 420 MHz, since 406 MHz is reserved for 

EPIRB signals to track downed airmen/aircraft etc. 

Problems Establishing 

a Single Public Safety 

Nationwide 

Frequency Band 
Appendix III: Potential Near-Term Steps to 

Improve Interoperability of Public Safety 

Wireless Communications 

Page 53 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

The SAFECOM program has established goals and objectives for the years 

2005, 2008, and 2023 in its current work program. This program was 

developed in December 2003 at a joint SAFECOM and AGILE planning 

meeting with input from federal, state, and local representatives. The 

SAFECOM Program Manager said that the SAFECOM Executive 

Committee approved the program as developed in the December meeting. 

Key objectives for the year 2005 include: the completion of a statement of 

requirements for public safety interoperable communications; 

establishment of a research, development, test, and evaluation program for 

existing and emerging public safety communications and interoperability; 

establishment of a technical assistance program for public safety 

communications and interoperability; and development of a process to 

advance standards necessary to improve public safety communications 

and interoperability. 

We provide descriptive material on these objectives, including why 

SAFECOM believes they are needed, major benefits anticipated if 

successfully completed, and key responsibilities of various parties to their 

accomplishment. 

One key barrier to the development of a national interoperability strategy 

has been the lack of a statement of national mission requirements for 

public safety—what set of communications capabilities should be built or 

acquired—and a strategy to get there. A key initiative in the SAFECOM 

program plan for the year 2005 is to complete a comprehensive Public 

Safety Statement of Requirements. The statement is to provide functional 

requirements that define how, when, and where public safety practitioners 

communicate. On April 26, 2004, DHS announced the release of the first 

comprehensive Statement of Requirements defining future communication 

requirements and outlining future technology needed to meet these 

requirements. According to DHS, the statement provides a shared vision 

and an architectural framework for future interoperable public safety 

communications. 

DHS describes the Statement of Requirements as a living document that 

will define future communications services as they change or become new 

requirements for public safety agencies in carrying out their missions. 

SAFECOM officials said additional versions of the statement will 

incorporate whatever is needed to meet future needs, but did not provide 

specific details. One example of potential future development is expanded 

coverage to include public safety support functions. The current statement 

is incomplete because it only addresses the functional requirements for 

Appendix III: Potential Near-Term Steps to 

Improve Interoperability of Public Safety 

Wireless Communications 

Statement of Public 

Safety Interoperable 

Communications 

Requirements 
Appendix III: Potential Near-Term Steps to 

Improve Interoperability of Public Safety 

Wireless Communications 

Page 54 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

traditional public safety first responders – Emergency Medical Services 

personnel, firefighters, and law enforcement officers. The statement 

recognizes the existence of but does not include in this version those 

elements of the public safety community—such as transportation or public 

utility workers—whose primary mission provides vital support to public 

safety officials. 

In addition, the frequent changes in SAFECOM management teams and 

changing implementation strategies has resulted in major changes in how 

SAFECOM intends to achieve its ultimate goals. As originally conceived 

while SAFECOM was in the Treasury Department, the program would 

build upon Public Safety Wireless Network’s (PSWN) efforts to achieve 

interoperability among state and local agencies by building an 

interoperable federal communications network. The SAFECOM program 

implementation strategy changed when the program was transferred to 

FEMA to focus on helping first responders make short-term improvements 

in interoperability using vehicles such as demonstration projects and 

research. At that time, the development of an interoperable federal system 

was seen as a long-term goal. 

DHS describes SAFECOM’s current goals as a vision that by the year 2023 

“There is an integrated system-of-systems, in regular use, that allows public safety 

personnel to communicate (voice, data, and video) with whom they need on demand, in 

real time, as authorized: 

Public safety can respond anywhere, bring their own equipment, and can work on any 

network immediately when authorized. 

Public safety will have the networking and spectrum resources it needs to function 

properly.” 

SAFECOM officials said under this concept each major region of the 

country—for example, New York City, Chicago, and Saint Louis and their 

adjacent suburban jurisdictions—will have their own “system” which is 

made up of multiple subsystems, such as police agencies, that have 

established relationships. Part of the SAFECOM concept is that a centrally 

dispatched Urban Search and Rescue team can respond to any of these 

cities/regions and operate with the equipment that they bring with them. 

However, a national architecture has not been prepared yet to guide the 

creation of interoperable communications. An explicit and commonly 

understood and agreed-to blueprint, or architecture, is required to 
Appendix III: Potential Near-Term Steps to 

Improve Interoperability of Public Safety 

Wireless Communications 

Page 55 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

effectively and efficiently guide modernization efforts. For a decade, we 

have promoted the use of architectures, recognizing them as a crucial 

means to a challenging goal: agency operational structures that are 

optimally defined in both business and technological environments. Office 

of Management and Budget officials told us that OMB charged SAFECOM 

with developing a national architecture, which will include local, state, and 

federal government architectures. According to these officials, SAFECOM 

is to work closely with state and local governments to establish a basic 

understanding of what infrastructure currently exists and to identify 

public safety communication requirements. SAFECOM officials said the 

development of a national architecture will take time because SAFECOM 

must first assist state and local governments to establish their 

communications architectures. They said SAFECOM will then collect the 

state and local architectures, and fit them into a national architecture that 

links federal communications into the state and local infrastructure. 

The SAFECOM Program Plan includes an objective for 2005 to establish a 

research, development and testing, and evaluation program that identifies 

and develops a long-term, sustainable technical foundation. The 

SAFECOM program plans provide funding and promote coordination 

across the federal government to test and evaluate existing 

communications and bridging technologies and to create a research and 

development program addressing emerging technologies, such as software 

defined radio. 

Public safety agencies have been addressing communications 

interoperability for many years under the name “mutual aid.” Under 

mutual aid agreements public safety agencies have been monitoring each 

other’s activities and radio communications through the use of scanners or 

exchanging radios. The agencies have built cross-patches into dispatcher 

consoles to interconnect radio systems. They also have agreed on the 

shared use of specific frequencies for first responders, such as police 

forces and fire departments. For example, the state of California 

sponsored the California Law Enforcement Mutual Aid Radio System that 

provides a common set of channels statewide for mutual aid. 

Other technology options are also becoming available to public safety 

agencies from government agencies and commercial vendors. For 

example, the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) has developed and fielded 

Research, 

Development, Test, 

and Evaluation 

Program for Existing 

and Emerging Public 

Safety 

Communications and 

Interoperability 
Appendix III: Potential Near-Term Steps to 

Improve Interoperability of Public Safety 

Wireless Communications 

Page 56 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

a high technology system that includes both civilian and military 

communications equipment that is capable of satellite communications 

and traditional public safety VHF, UHF, and 800 MHz spectrum bands.1

According to NRL, all bands can be linked to every other band and to 

normal telephone lines, private cellular networks, and satellite links. 

According to NRL, its system comes in various sizes and configurations 

that have been used at the 2002 Olympic Games and Superbowl XXXVII 

and can meet other Homeland Security incidents. 

New commercial technologies and systems are also becoming available. 

According to some state and local officials, they have to rely upon vendors 

for information on these new products because they do not have a single 

independent source of comprehensive information and the federal 

government can play a valuable role in testing and evaluating these 

technologies. For example, officials representing the Midwest Consortium 

told us that the federal government could create a clearinghouse of 

technical support for the state and local agencies. Therefore, rather than 

using the equipment vendors for technical advice on what to purchase and 

what type of systems to build, the state and local agencies could look to 

the federal government for technical assistance. 

But federal officials said there is no single source of data on new vendor 

equipment and that their first task is to identify what equipment is 

available. For example, federal laboratory officials in Boulder, Colorado, 

said they recently conducted a literature search in which they identified 

11 vendors that make 24 models of Project 25 portable/mobile radio 

equipment, 7 vendors that make 9 models of conventional Project 25 

repeater/base stations equipment, and only 1 vendor that makes Project 25 

base stations using trunking technology. However, they said another 

center had prepared a list of entirely different equipment. 

Federal laboratory officials said that many of these technologies have not 

been tested and that there is no coordinated program today to test and 

evaluate vendor equipment and technologies. These officials said that 

various federal agencies conduct testing – for example, the Office of Law 

Enforcement Standards in the National Institute of Standards and 

Technology, the Department of the Interior, and the Forest Service. They 

said these agencies may also have different test objectives, for example, 

the NTIA/ITS laboratory conducts data analysis evaluation, while the 

 1

We did not review the NRL’s system performance. 
Appendix III: Potential Near-Term Steps to 

Improve Interoperability of Public Safety 

Wireless Communications 

Page 57 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Center in Rome, 

New York, concentrates primarily on operational testing. 

SAFECOM officials said that their role is to coordinate research, 

development, test, and evaluation activities for the federal government as 

part of their contribution to communications interoperability. They 

acknowledged that the federal government has multiple initiatives under 

way and that no cohesive plan to coordinate these initiatives exists today. 

These officials said SAFECOM plans to create standardized procedures for 

uniform testing procedures by the federal government. However, they said 

that because the SAFECOM program has not been authorized, they cannot 

create a unified research, development, test, and evaluation program 

without statutory authority. 

First responders must have the necessary technical support and training 

needed to properly communicate with each other using wireless 

communications on a day-to-day basis as well as in emergency situations. 

First responders will be challenged to perform at their best ability, 

especially during a major incident such as a terrorist attack or natural 

disaster. Therefore, ongoing technical assistance and training is needed. 

The SAFECOM Program Plan states that the public safety community 

expressed their need for technical assistance, including support for 

planning, development, implementation, and assessment of public safety 

communications systems. In response, SAFECOM is developing a plan to 

provide technical assistance and training to the public safety community. 

The plan or work package includes (1) creating a one-stop shop, which 

will consist of a Web portal and call in center and (2) providing training 

and technical assistance, which will consist of a practitioner resource 

group, training and assistance, national calling channels, and technical 

assistance publications for the public safety community. According to 

SAFECOM officials, the technical assistance work package has been 

approved for funding in fiscal year 2005. 

State and local government officials told us what a national technical 

assistance and outreach program for the public safety community should 

include. A Georgia official said that training should also be provided by the 

federal government to improve wireless communications among public 

safety officials. According to SAFECOM training should consist of tools 

and templates to train multiple public safety agencies and personnel on 

how to use interoperable communications equipment and processes. For 

example, officials from the state of Georgia told us the federal government 

Technical Assistance for 

Interoperable Public 

Safety Communications 
Appendix III: Potential Near-Term Steps to 

Improve Interoperability of Public Safety 

Wireless Communications 

Page 58 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

should provide programs and assistance to coordinate the design and 

implementation of communications systems. Local officials in the state of 

Washington agreed that the federal government could offer staff 

assistance or technical support to the state and local public safety 

officials. 

According to local officials in Florida, the federal government should 

require that public safety officials have communications training. These 

local officials told us that the police are required to train and pass 

qualifications for using their gun at least once a year; however, they use 

their guns less than their communications equipment. There are no 

requirements to train on using the communications equipment. Local 

officials in San Diego County told us that the federal government could 

use other federal entities, such as the National Accreditation for Law 

Enforcement, as a model to educate and train public safety agencies. The 

National Accreditation for Law Enforcement could use state agencies as 

consultants to provide technical and operation advice to small localities. 

First responders must plan for and train on new technologies or the 

technology could have a negative impact on the effectiveness of 

emergency responders. The states we visited or contacted are using 

gateway technology as a short-term solution to achieving communications 

interoperability. However, this technology only patches different systems 

together and has to be used properly to be effective. For example, an 

official in California told us some public safety officials caused an entire 

system to crash at the most critical point of communications when they 

used it for the first time during an emergency because they had not been 

properly trained on the system. In addition, use of gateway systems may 

result in too many people trying to talk, in turn, taxing the communication 

systems. 

State and local public safety officials we talked with told us they needed 

national guidance on standards. For example, members of the Midwest 

Consortium we spoke with said they needed more national guidance on 

standards and technical issues and the establishment of a national entity 

made up of federal, state, and local entities that set standards. However, 

consortium officials emphasized that federal communications standards 

and initiatives must be reasonable, balanced, and consistent with state and 

local jurisdictions’ funding capabilities and their communication needs 

and objectives. 

Standards to Improve 

Interoperable Public 

Safety 

Communications 
Appendix III: Potential Near-Term Steps to 

Improve Interoperability of Public Safety 

Wireless Communications 

Page 59 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

OMB has established the development of standards for first responder 

interoperability at all levels of government as a SAFECOM objective. 

SAFECOM is to develop these standards by working in partnership with 

federal, state, local, and tribal public safety organizations. SAFECOM is 

working on a plan to address the development of national standards to 

improve public safety communications and interoperability. A key 

initiative in the SAFECOM program plan for the year 2005 is development 

of a process to advance standards needed to improve public safety 

communications. This initiative will identify, test, and where necessary, 

develop standards in coordination with the public safety community and 

ongoing standards activities. 

In our November 2003 testimony, we noted that a partnership between 

industry and the public safety user community developed what is known 

as Project 25 (P-25) standards. According to the PSWN program office, 

P-25 standards remain the only user-defined set of standards in the United 

States for public safety communications. PSWN believes P-25 is an 

important step toward achieving interoperability, but the standards do not 

mandate interoperability among all manufacturers’ systems. Federal 

officials also told us significant work remains to complete the 

development of the Project 25 standards and to test vendor equipment 

against these standards. The SAFECOM work plan states that SAFECOM 

will devote resources to accelerate the completion of the Project 25 suite 

of standards and create a common radio nomenclature for first 

responders. 

One problem that occurred in New York City on September 11, 2001, was 

that incompatible radio systems prevented police and fire department 

personnel from talking to one another. The DHS Secretary recently 

announced that DHS has identified technical specifications for a baseline 

interoperable communications system as the short-term solution to allow 

first responders to communicate by voice—no matter what frequency on 

which they are operating. SAFECOM officials said that the specifications 

the Secretary referred to are for generic bridging technologies that 

interconnect first responders’ different land mobile radios. According to 

these officials, the Secretary has also determined that local emergencybased communications interoperability capabilities should be in locations 

of critical concern by December 2004. These officials said that this date is 

the deadline for putting an interim solution in place for interoperable radio 

communications for police, fire, and emergency first responders. 

Technological NearTerm Actions: 

Bridging Equipment 
Appendix III: Potential Near-Term Steps to 

Improve Interoperability of Public Safety 

Wireless Communications 

Page 60 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

Some states are already using the bridging equipment or audio switches 

identified as a short-term solution by DHS and have identified several 

nontechnical barriers to successful use of the equipment. A state official in 

California told us that first responders need to plan their use of these 

technologies and become trained on using the technology, or it could have 

a negative impact on emergency response to an incident. This official said, 

for example, that some public safety officials had not been properly 

trained on using one vendor’s system, causing the system to fail at a 

critical point the first time they used the system in an emergency. 

According to this official, this technology must be used properly to be 

effective. Local officials in the State of Washington also told us that 

multiple units of these systems could overload communications because 

too many officials are trying to talk at the same time. A federal laboratory 

official said the bridging or audio switches provide the benefits of 

interoperability of disparate radio systems but have several shortfalls. 

These shortfalls include a requirement that users be within coverage of 

their home radio systems and that the use of bridging equipment may 

require pre-incident coordination. He said there are 4 major vendors, and 

about 30 vendors in total that make bridging equipment. He said testing 

has been conducted on only 2 of the major vendors’ equipment. 

State and local officials said they want an independent source of 

information on new products and that the federal government can play a 

valuable role in providing that information. SAFECOM officials said they 

intend to include their bridging specifications in federal grant guidance as 

a condition for using federal funds to purchase bridging equipment. 

However, they said that the specifications for such equipment may be 

released and in use before their testing program for switches and bridging 

technologies is complete. They said public safety agencies must rely on 

vendor data to determine whether the untested systems meet DHS’s 

requirements. SAFECOM officials also recognize that significant training 

on such equipment must accompany the delivery of the equipment to first 

responders. The officials said COPS and ODP have developed a template 

for providing technical assistance training for bridging equipment. 

Technological NearTerm Actions: 

Technical Assistance 

and Independent 

Assessments of 

Alternative 

Technologies 
Appendix IV: Role of States Continues to 

Evolve 

Page 61 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

State and local governments play a large, perhaps defining, role in 

resolving the communications interoperability problem. As recognized by 

the Federal Communications Commission, states play a central role in 

managing emergency communications, and state level organizations are 

usually in control at large-scale events and disasters or multiagency 

incidents. FCC also said that states are usually in the best position to 

coordinate with federal government emergency agencies. According to the 

National Strategy for Homeland Security,1

 local officials stress that they 

are the first to respond to any incident and the last to leave the scene of an 

incident. According to the SAFECOM program, state and local 

governments also own 90 percent of the public safety communications 

infrastructure. 

In our November 2003 testimony, we identified fragmented planning and 

cooperation as the key barrier to improving interoperability of public 

safety wireless communications systems. In the past, a stovepiped, single 

jurisdiction or agency-specific systems development approach prevailed—

resulting in none or less than desired interoperable communications 

systems. Public safety agencies have historically planned and acquired 

communications systems for their own jurisdictions without concern for 

interoperability. This meant that each state and local agency developed 

communications systems to meet their own requirements, without regard 

to interoperability requirements to talk to adjacent jurisdictions. For 

example, a PSWN analysis of Fire and EMS communications 

interoperability found a significant need for coordinated approaches, 

relationship building, and information sharing. However, the PSWN 

program office found that public safety agencies have traditionally 

developed or updated their radio systems independently to meet specific 

mission needs. 

The PSWN program also concluded that state leaders can, through 

memorandums of understanding (MOU), help to define interagency 

relationships, reach procedural agreements, promote regular meetings of 

statewide or regional interoperability committees, and encourage joint 

efforts to deploy communications technology. State and local officials that 

we talked with generally agree that states can coordinate communications 

planning and funding support for state communications systems and 

coordinate local governments’ interoperability efforts. For example, 

several officials said the state can facilitate the planning process by 

 1

National Strategy for Homeland Security, White House Office of Homeland Security. 

Appendix IV: Role of States Continues to 

Evolve 
Appendix IV: Role of States Continues to 

Evolve 

Page 62 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

including key stakeholder input in the decision making process and ensure 

that communications interoperability issues are addressed. However, 

officials also see state roles in providing common infrastructure and 

developing routine training exercises. 

Several states have or are taking executive and legislative actions that 

coordinate and facilitate efforts to address problems of interoperable 

communications within their states. For example, as we indicated 

previously, states we visited have or are in the process of establishing 

SIECs to enhance communications interoperability planning, including the 

development of interoperability plans and administration of 

interoperability spectrum. California in 2003 also established the Public 

Safety Radio Strategic Planning Committee (PSRSPC) to develop and 

implement a statewide integrated public safety communications system 

for state government agencies that facilitates interoperability and other 

shared uses of public safety spectrum with local and federal agencies. In 

Florida, the governor issued an executive order in 2001 to establish seven 

Regional Domestic Security Task Forces that make up the entire state. 

Each of the regional task forces has a committee on interoperable 

communications under Florida’s State Working Group. The Florida 

legislature supported that effort by establishing the task forces in law and 

formally designating the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the 

Division of Emergency Management as the lead agencies. The Task Forces 

consist of agencies from Fire/Rescue, Emergency Management, and public 

health and hospitals, as well as law enforcement. In addition, it includes 

partnerships with education/schools, business, and private industry. 

In addition, planning on a regional basis is key to interoperable 

communications systems development. The Public Safety Wireless 

Network report also notes that although in the past public safety agencies 

have addressed interoperability on an individual basis, more recently, 

local, state, and federal agencies have come to realize that they cannot do 

it alone. The report also notes that officials at all levels of government are 

now taking action to improve coordination and facilitate 

multijurisdictional interoperability. We talked with officials from several 

state and local agencies about their efforts to address interoperability 

issues on a regional basis. For example: 

• In Georgia and Washington, state and local emergency consequence 

planning continues to be structured around the all-hazards planning model 

and are broken down into regions. The regions are made up of one or 

more counties that include cities, towns, and tribal nations within the 

regional geographical boundaries. This regional configuration was 
Appendix IV: Role of States Continues to 

Evolve 

Page 63 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

implemented to develop regional interoperability plans, distribute federal 

grant funds, develop emergency responder equipment priority lists, plan 

and execute training exercises, create regionally based mutual aid plans, 

and develop volunteer infrastructure to support citizens’ involvement in 

homeland security initiatives. 

• The King County Regional Communications Board system in Washington 

State is a multijurisdictional coordination body. Communication decisions 

are made by the group and not made by individual jurisdictions. This 

regional cooperation is informal and not legislated or mandated. 

• The San Diego County Regional Communications System was established 

in 1994 to provide an interoperable wireless network available to all public 

safety agencies. 

State officials also told us that statewide interoperability is not enough 

because incident first responders face could cross boundaries. Thus, some 

states are also taking actions to address interstate interoperability 

problems. For example, state officials from Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, 

Michigan, and Ohio said their states have combined efforts to form the 

Midwest Public Safety Communications Consortium to promote interstate 

interoperability. These officials told us that the governors of their five 

member states plan to sign an MOU with each other to signify that each 

state is willing to be interoperable with the other states and provide 

communication assistance and resources to the other states, to the extent 

that it does not harm their own state. According to these officials, they 

also have taken actions to form an interstate committee to develop 

interoperability plans and solicit support from key players such as local 

public safety agencies. The benefits of the consortium are increased 

interoperability on a larger regional basis, an exchange of technical 

information, greater power over vendor manipulation because of 

increased purchasing power, an exchange of pricing and technical 

information, and lessons learned from their collective experiences. 

Although efforts are underway to address communications interoperability 

issues, state and local public safety officials face challenges in addressing 

communications interoperability. According to state and local public 

safety officials, some of the key challenges they are confronted with today 

include (1) multiple statewide communication systems, (2) turf or control 

issues, and (3) lack of communications training for public safety officials. 

Challenges in 

Addressing 

Communications 

Interoperability 
Appendix IV: Role of States Continues to 

Evolve 

Page 64 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

Federal officials told us that states have multiple state communications 

systems that make communications interoperability planning more 

difficult. The states we visited have multiple statewide communications 

systems. For example, in the state of Washington, the departments of 

Transportation, Corrections, and Health use communication systems 

operating in the 800 MHz frequency band, while the National Guard and 

Emergency Management Division operate communications systems with 

the spectrum reserved for federal agencies. The remainder of the state 

agencies operates in the 150 MHz frequency band. Similarly, Florida has 

several statewide systems such as State Law Enforcement Radio System 

(SLERS) and Forestry systems that are not compatible. Because the 

forestry system operates on a different frequency band than SLERS, it 

does not allow users to communicate with law enforcement except 

through console patches. The SLERS was originally designed primarily for 

8 state law enforcement entities. Membership now includes 17 law 

enforcement entities in 15 state agencies. 

Some local jurisdictions also have multiple communications systems. For 

example, San Diego and Imperial Counties have developed and 

implemented a radio system referred to as the Regional Communications 

System (RCS). RCS’s primary mission is to provide an interoperable 

wireless network available to all public safety and public service agencies 

within the counties, regardless of jurisdiction or level of government. 

However, according to local public safety officials in California, political, 

funding, and technology limitations such as incompatible communications 

equipment have prevented full participation in the system by the city of 

San Diego and other jurisdictions in the counties. According to a local 

government official in California, however, RCS and the city have 

collaborated on planning the transition from their current systems to a 

P-25 compatible system, which he said will provide seamless 

interoperability for all public safety agencies operating in the Southern 

California region. 

According to PSWN, efforts to develop and implement regional or shared 

systems are hindered by perceptions that management control of radio 

system development and operations will be lost. As a result, coordination 

and partnership efforts do not evolve, and “stop gap” measures are 

implemented to address specific interoperability requirements. 

Interoperable communications is meaningless unless first responders 

overcome turf issues and learn to cooperate in any given incident, 

according to Midwest Public Safety Communications Consortium 

members. The Consortium members said that the technical part of 

building interoperability is easy, compared with the political and 
Appendix IV: Role of States Continues to 

Evolve 

Page 65 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

operational issues. As a result, the planning process for addressing 

political and operational issues is vital. 

In the state of Washington, a potential obstacle to effective coordination 

may lie in the historical relationship between state and local governments. 

The state has 39 counties and 268 towns and counties. According to a 

Century Foundation report, local and regional governments in Washington 

have a long tradition of home rule and independent action, which makes it 

difficult for state officials to coordinate the activities of the units of local 

government. Washington state and local officials said that the political 

power in the state is decentralized, and the local city and county 

governments may resist state-driven mandates. Things get done on a 

consensus basis at the local level. 

According to local officials in Washington, that type of relationship does 

not exist between the state and local jurisdictions or the federal agencies 

and local jurisdictions. Regionally based planning is problematic due to 

resistance by locally elected officials, lack of trust between officials in 

different jurisdictions or disciplines, and competition over resources, 

according to a Century Foundation report. For example, one of the 

concerns of the Washington SIEC planning group was that the state could 

not force locals to participate or adhere to the development of a statewide 

communications plan, they could only invite locals to participate. 
Appendix V: Federal Grant Structure Does 

Not Fully Support Interoperability Planning 

Page 66 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

Federal grant funds can be used to facilitate and encourage coordinated 

regional planning. However, there are currently several challenges to the 

ability to use these funds to support the long-term coordinated regional 

planning that we have identified as being essential to improving 

interoperable communications. First, federal funds are structured to 

address short-term needs for the development of interoperability projects 

rather than long-term planning needs for communications interoperability. 

Second, federal grants have inconsistent requirements to plan regionally. 

Third, the first responders grant structure is fragmented, which can 

complicate coordination and integration of services and planning at the 

state and local levels, and has presented additional barriers to federal 

efforts to coordinate communications funds. Fourth, uncoordinated 

federal and state level grant reviews limit the government’s ability to 

ensure that funds are used to improve regional and statewide 

communications interoperability. 

A study conducted in 1998 estimated the current replacement value of the 

existing public safety LMR infrastructure nationwide at $18.3 billion.1

According to a PSWN report, DHS officials have said that this estimate is 

much higher when infrastructure and training costs are taken into 

account. In addition, reaching an accelerated goal for improving 

communications interoperability will require a major investment of several 

billion dollars within the next 5 to 10 years. The estimated cost of an LMR 

system for a state or local jurisdiction can range from tens of thousands to 

hundreds of millions of dollars, depending on the size and type of system 

being implemented. According to PSWN, these cost estimates account 

only for the procurement of the equipment and infrastructure and do not 

include ongoing operation and maintenance costs. According to another 

Public Safety Wireless network (PSWN) funding report, the extraordinary 

investment in LMR systems makes obtaining the necessary funding to 

finance the replacement or upgrade of LMR systems one of the greatest 

challenges facing public safety agencies. This is especially true because 

public safety communications systems typically reach the end of their 

useful life cycle in 8 to 10 years. In addition, the National 

Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and Federal 

Communications Commission (FCC) have established a new migration 

plan that will require that all federal and state and local public safety 

 1

Land Mobile Radio Replacement Cost Study, Public Safety Wireless Network Program, 

Fairfax, VA., June 1998. 

Appendix V: Federal Grant Structure Does 

Not Fully Support Interoperability Planning 

First Responder 

Federal Funding Is 

Structured to Support 

Short-Term Rather 

Than Long-Term 

Communication 

Needs 
Appendix V: Federal Grant Structure Does 

Not Fully Support Interoperability Planning 

Page 67 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

agencies replace current LMR equipment with narrowband (12.5 kHz) 

equipment by 2008 and 2018, respectively. Federal funding is but one of 

several resources state and local agencies must utilize in order to address 

these financial challenges. 

State and local public safety officials say that they do not have reliable 

federal funding support for the planning costs associated with the longterm development of interoperable communications. State and locals 

officials from states that we visited identified the lack of a sustained 

funding source for communications as a major barrier. Local officials 

emphasized that public safety agencies need a re-occurring source of 

funds for communications because interoperability barriers cannot be 

fixed with a one-time grant.2

 For example, local public safety officials from 

Washington state asserted that, once the granted project is complete, 

locals still have intense fiscal pressures to face in the support and 

operation of the communication systems. As a result, state and local 

agencies need to provide assurances that they can sustain the projects that 

the grants have developed. However, they emphasized that further federal 

support is needed to help with these costs. Officials from Georgia and 

California also expressed the need for federal support in addressing ongoing costs and suggested creating a dedicated source of funds similar to 

the interstate highway program or 911 tax to assist states with 

implementing the long-term solutions. 

We have identified several federal grants that can be used to address first 

responder communications (See table 1.) Among these grants, in fiscal 

year 2003, Congress appropriated funds for two programs specifically 

dedicated to improving first responder interoperable communications. 

However, since 2003, the funding for these grant programs has changed 

significantly. In fiscal year 2003, the Office of Community Oriented 

Policing Services (COPS) and Federal Emergency Management Agency 

(FEMA) received approximately $154 million to provide grants for 

 2

SAFECOM has identified several investment areas that must be taken into account in the 

life-cycle of a public safety communication system, in their recent grant guidance. These 

include: planning for public safety communication systems; building communication 

systems; upgrading/enhancing communication systems and equipment; replacing 

communication systems and equipment; maintaining communication systems and 

equipment; training public safety staff on issues related to emergency response 

communications; and managing public safety communications projects. 
Appendix V: Federal Grant Structure Does 

Not Fully Support Interoperability Planning 

Page 68 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

interoperable communications equipment3. In fiscal year 2004 FEMA’s lineitem budget for this program was cut and was not explicitly picked up 

anywhere else in DHS. The COPS program was awarded only $85 million 

as the sole source for the interoperable communications equipment grant 

for fiscal year 2004. In addition, the President’s fiscal year 2005 budget 

proposal allocates no funds for the Interoperable Communications 

Equipment grant program to the DHS and suggests reductions in other 

funding sources that state and locals are eligible to use for 

communications interoperability. For more details on changes to these 

funding sources, see table 1. 

 3

In technical comments to a draft of this report, COPS officials said of this $154 million, 

Congress directed that $5 million of COPS appropriations be earmarked for NIST and $3 

million for NIJ/AGILE. 
Appendix V: Federal Grant Structure Does 

Not Fully Support Interoperability Planning 

Page 69 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

Table 1: Changes to Funding Sources for Communications Interoperability 

Appropriated for Fiscal Years 2003 and 2004 

Dollars in millions 

Grant name/ description 

Federal agency, department 

administering the grant FY 2003 FY 2004

FEMA Interoperable 

Communications Equipment 

Granta

FEMA, DHS $80 

COPS Interoperable 

Communications Technology 

Grant 

Office of Community Oriented 

Policing Services, DOJ 

$75 $85

Homeland Security Grant 

Programb

Office for Domestic Preparedness, 

DHS 

$2,066 $1,700

Urban Areas Security Initiative 

Grant 

Office for Domestic Preparedness, 

DHS 

$596 $725

Assistance to Fire- fighters 

Grant 

Office for Domestic 

Preparedness,c

DHS 

$750 $750

Emergency Management 

Performance Grants 

FEMA, DHS $165 $180

National Urban Search and 

Rescue Response System 

FEMA, DHS $60 $60

Local Law Enforcement Block 

Grants 

Bureau of Justice Assistance, DOJ $400 $225

Edward Byrne Memorial State 

and Local Law Enforcement 

Assistance Discretionary 

Grants 

Bureau of Justice Assistance, DOJ $151 $159

Source: GAO analysis of congressional appropriations, the president’s fiscal year 2005 budget proposal, DHS, DOJ, and Catalogue of 

Federal Domestic Assistance data. 

Notes: The fiscal year 2003 FEMA and COPS Interoperable Communications Equipment grants were 

grants specifically targeted toward improving first responder communication equipment to increase 

interoperability. 

a

In fiscal year 2004, this grant program’s name changed from State Homeland Security Grant to 

Homeland Security Grant Program (HSGP). The new grant program includes three different grant 

programs. 

b

Until fiscal year 2004, this program was administered by FEMA. 

c

The president’s fiscal year 2005 Budget Proposal funds this program under the Office for Domestic 

Preparedness. 

Local, state, and federal officials agree that regional communications plans 

should be developed to guide decisions on how to use federal funds for 

interoperable communications. However, the officials emphasize that 

federal grant conditions and requirements do not support this planning 

process. While there are several grants to assist first responders in 
Appendix V: Federal Grant Structure Does 

Not Fully Support Interoperability Planning 

Page 70 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

preparing for emergency response, state and local public safety officials 

from the states that we visited said that these grants do not provide 

adequate support for dedicated staff resources for communications 

planning or allow adequate time for state and locals to plan. Officials 

emphasized that most public safety organizations that are tasked with 

addressing the planning functions for the operational, technical, and 

coordination needs of communications systems, such as Regional 

Planning Committees, State Interoperability Executive Committees, and 

system managers rely on volunteer efforts of first responders, who also 

have full-time duties in their regular jobs. 

With new spectrum policies for narrow banding, local first responders are 

skeptical that they will have the staff resources to meet potentially 

significant additional workloads in these new challenges. For example, 

managers of a regional communication system serving multiple counties in 

Washington state documented this concern in a 2003 filing to the FCC. The 

filing stated, 

“The success of the regional planning approach can no longer be left to the volunteer 

efforts of the engaged public entities, particularly for something as complicated and intense 

as the re-banding proposed in the Supplemental Filing. All local governments are stretched 

to the maximum in our combined situation of economic challenges and security 

uncertainty. This has a limiting effect on the ability of the skilled personnel who normally 

engage in the regional planning efforts to continue engagement at the high levels that 

would be necessary to deal with a re-banding effort. This is even more the case in the 

complex border areas where numerous technical, procedural and perhaps political issues 

need to be resolved to make the effort a success. Region 43 strongly supports the need for 

a national pool of experts and funding to work with the RPCs as they undertake the rebanding in their Regions. These need to be people and resources that can do the hard work 

of inventorying systems, understanding spectrum relationships, evaluating the unique 

terrain and topography of the area and helping establish technically and operationally 

competent migration strategies that work for the unique situations of each Region... But 

Committees on their own can’t do this work effectively, and left to their own resources, we 

will see staggered and inconsistent results across the country.” 
Appendix V: Federal Grant Structure Does 

Not Fully Support Interoperability Planning 

Page 71 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

As we mentioned previously, creating communications interoperability 

requires a coordinated regional approach. Recent grant requirements have 

encouraged jurisdictions to take a regional approach to planning, which 

has resulted in more local efforts to plan using a multidisciplinary and 

multi-jurisdictional approach rather than the stove-piped planning that 

formerly existed. For example, grant criteria used in the fiscal year 2003 

COPS and FEMA Interoperable Communications Equipment grants 

encouraged multi-jurisdictional and multidisciplinary approaches, which 

resulted in grants being given to applicants that developed regional and 

multidisciplinary partnerships. For example, officials from Florida that 

received the COPS grant award for $6 million told us that as a result of this 

encouraged regional approach, they applied for the grant using a 

consortium of nine counties that formed a plan for interoperability and 

will use the funds on a multiregional basis to increase interoperability 

within and among their jurisdictions. State and local officials that we 

spoke with said that the federal government needs to do more to 

encourage regional communications planning and that this requirement 

should be made a condition of receiving grants. 

In our November 6 testimony, we also identified coordinated planning for 

communications interoperability as a pre-requisite to effectively 

addressing communication issues. However, current federal first 

responder grants are inconsistent in their requirements to tie funding to 

interoperable communications plans. States and locals are not required to 

provide an interoperable communications plan as a pre-requisite to 

receiving some federal grant funds. As a result, there is no assurance that 

federal funds are being used to support a well-developed strategy for 

improving interoperability. For example: 

• The fiscal year 2004 Homeland Security Grant Program (HSGP) requires 

states to conduct a needs assessment and submit a State Homeland 

Security Strategy to Office for Domestic Preparedness (ODP); however, 

the required strategy is high-level and broad in nature. It does not require 

that project narratives or a detailed communications plan be submitted by 

grantees prior to receiving grant funds. 

• The Urban Areas Security Initiative (UASI) grant requires a Needs 

Assessment and Urban Area Strategy to be developed by grantees, but also 

does not require project narratives or detailed plans. 

• The COPS and FEMA Interoperable Communications Equipment grants 

did not require that a communications plan be completed prior to 

receiving grant funds. However, grantees were required to provide 

Federal Grants 

Encouraged a 

“Regional” Approach 

to Planning, but 

Lacked Requirements 

for Interoperability 

Communications 

Plans 
Appendix V: Federal Grant Structure Does 

Not Fully Support Interoperability Planning 

Page 72 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

documentation that they were actively engaged in a planning process and 

a multijurisdictional and multidisciplinary project narrative was required 

for submission. If applicants intended to use the funds to support a project 

that was previously developed, they were required to submit the plan for 

review. 

An ODP program official acknowledged that requirements to develop a 

detailed communications needs assessment are missing and that ODP is 

currently developing an assessment tool. The official said that grantees 

could use this tool to assess their specific communication needs and 

conduct a gap analysis. The analysis would be used by the jurisdictions to 

develop an interoperable communications plan that would support the 

State and Urban Area Homeland Security strategies. 

State and local public safety officials that we spoke with reported that 

because of the lack of federal requirements to submit plans for 

interoperable communications; some federal grant funds are being spent 

on individual projects without a plan to guide these expenditures. States 

that we visited received federal funds that could be used for 

communications, but did not have statewide communications plans to 

guide decisions on local requests for federal funds. To combat this 

concern, the state of Washington Emergency Management Division said 

that it is holding back on allocating its obligated funds until its State 

Executive Interoperability Committee has developed a statewide 

communications plan that can be used to guide decisions on local request 

for communication funds. 

In addition to variations in requirements to create communications 

interoperability plans, federal grants lack consistency in defining what 

“regional” body should conduct planning. Regions are defined differently 

by different federal agencies. The COPS office, which provided grant funds 

for interoperable communications equipment, defined eligible regions as 

Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA’s).4

 The Office for Domestic 

Preparedness’ (ODP) Urban Areas Security Initiative’s provided grants to 

“urban area” regions, which were defined—in some cases—as a subset of 

a MSA. On the other hand, FEMA awarded its grants for interoperable 

communications equipment based upon a jurisdictional nomination from 

the state governor. Furthermore, FCC has defined regions for 

 4

In the application guidance, the Metropolitan Statistical Areas were defined as a core area 

containing a large population nucleus, together with adjacent communities having a high 

degree of economic and social integration with that core. 
Appendix V: Federal Grant Structure Does 

Not Fully Support Interoperability Planning 

Page 73 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

communications planning based upon other characteristics. However, all 

four of the agencies encourage state and locals to conduct “regional” 

planning for communications. 

In addition to resources for planning, first responders emphasized that the 

limited time provided to first responders to conduct planning for 

communications interoperability before submission of grants presents a 

barrier. State and local officials from the Office of Emergency 

Management Services expressed concern about their inability to develop 

effective plans within the current grant timeframes. State officials from 

California’s Office of Emergency Management said that the short turn 

around timeframe on the ODP Homeland Security and UASI grants limited 

their ability to perform a high-level grant review or assist with local 

planning. ODP required that grantees submit a proposal within 30 days of 

the announcement. As a result, state officials said that they were allowed 

only enough time to review whether local grant proposals matched an 

itemized equipment list provided by ODP and could not perform an 

evaluation of local grant proposals or provide assistance to the locals in 

planning for and writing their grants. A representative from a county 

Office of Emergency Services in California expressed the same sentiment. 

He said that grants are coming with such short timeframes that localities 

are operating with a total lack of information before submitting the grants. 

He stressed that states and localities need time to study what they need in 

order to get something worthwhile. Officials from the other three states 

that we visited—Florida, Georgia, and Washington—also articulated 

similar concerns. 

Similar to state and local officials, federal officials expressed concerns 

about first responders’ ability to plan for long-term regional 

communication systems within the current 30 or 60 day submission time 

frames allotted for the grants. Officials from SAFECOM said that in order 

to alleviate the previous stove pipe communications planning of agencies, 

regional planning should be a pre-requisite to receiving federal funds. 

However, they emphasized that if planning were required as a condition 

for receiving grants, states would have to be given enough lead time to 

prepare a successful plan. The officials said that the current time frames 

placed on grants does not allow states or jurisdictions enough time to 

effectively create a communications plan that would make the most 

efficient use of federal funds. Adequate lead time may be a 1 or 2 year 

planning period. In addition, states should be given a planning model to 

demonstrate how to successfully plan for communications—including 

Grant Submissions 

and Performance 

Period Time Frames 

Also Present 

Challenges to Shortand Long-Term 

Planning 
Appendix V: Federal Grant Structure Does 

Not Fully Support Interoperability Planning 

Page 74 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

creating a governance structure as the first step. SAFECOM officials said 

that they are trying to develop this type of model in the Commonwealth of 

Virginia. ODP is also developing a similar model in Kansas City, Missouri. 

COPS officials administering the fiscal year 2003 Interoperable 

Communications Technology grant also said that requiring that a 

communications plan be developed prior to receiving grants would be a 

positive thing, if the grantees were given an appropriate amount of time to 

develop a plan before submission—perhaps several months. They noted 

that they did not require that grantees have a communications plan 

developed prior to receiving federal funds because the grantees only had 

30 days from the grant announcement to submit their proposals. The 

Homeland Security Grant, UASI grant, Assistance to Firefighters grants 

also allow states only 30 or 60 days to submit a grant proposal. 

Demonstration grants also have been awarded to state and locals for 

communications interoperability that have 1 or 2 year performance 

periods and do not support long-term solutions. For example, Assistance 

to Firefighters Grant, COPS and FEMA’s Interoperable Communications 

Equipment grants, and National Urban Search and Rescue Response 

System grants all have 1-year performance periods.5

 UASI, HSGP, and 

Local Law Enforcement Block Grants have 2-year performance periods. 

 5

 n their technical comments on a draft of this report, COPS officials said the performance 

period for the FY 2003 Interoperable Communications Technology Equipment and the 

COPS Interoperable Communications Technology Program have a one year time period but 

that no-cost extensions of time were available to grantees on a case-by-case basis to 

accommodate unavoidable delays. 
Appendix V: Federal Grant Structure Does 

Not Fully Support Interoperability Planning 

Page 75 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

In our 2003 testimony,6 we pointed out that the federal first responder 

grant programs’ structure was fragmented, which can complicate 

coordination and integration of services and planning at the state and local 

levels. We also highlighted the variation in grant requirements for first 

responders grants. For example, DHS’s Assistance to Firefighters grant 

had a maintenance of effort requirement while the Fire Training Systems 

grant had no similar requirement. 

In this report, we find that fragmentation exists within Communications 

Interoperability grants that presents challenges to federal efforts to 

coordinate and streamline the funding process. Multiple agencies provide 

communication interoperability funding and have different guidelines and 

appropriations language that define how the funds can be used. A list of 

interoperable communications grant sources from 2003 through 2004 

within DHS and DOJ and their eligible uses are listed in table 2. 

 6

See U.S. General Accounting Office, Reforming Federal Grants to Better Meet 

Outstanding Needs, GAO-03-1146T (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 3, 2003). 

Fragmented First 

Responder Grant 

Structure Complicates 

and Limits 

Coordination at the 

Federal, State, and 

Local Levels 
Appendix V: Federal Grant Structure Does 

Not Fully Support Interoperability Planning 

Page 76 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

Table 2: Federal Interoperable Communications Grant Funding Sources and Their Eligible Uses 

Grant name/ description 

Federal agency, department 

administering the grant 

Equipment 

acquisition Planning Training Exercises 

FEMA Interoperable Communications 

Equipment Granta

FEMA, DHS X 

COPS Interoperable Communications 

Technology Grant 

Office of Community Oriented 

Policing Services, DOJ 

X 

Homeland Security Grant Programb Office for Domestic Preparedness, 

DHS 

X X X X 

Urban Areas Security Initiative Grant Office for Domestic Preparedness, 

DHS 

X X X X 

Assistance to Fire- fighters Grant Office for Domestic Preparedness,c

DHS 

X X 

Emergency Management Performance 

Grants 

FEMA, DHS X X X X 

National Urban Search and Rescue 

Response System 

FEMA, DHS X X X 

Local Law Enforcement Block Grants Bureau of Justice Assistance, DOJ X X X 

Edward Byrne Memorial State and Local 

Law Enforcement Assistance 

Discretionary Grants 

Bureau of Justice Assistance, DOJ X X 

Source: GAO analysis of DHS and DOJ data. 

a

The Homeland Security Grant and all other grants listed, with the exception of the FEMA and COPS 

“Interoperable Communications Equipment grants,” provide funding for various emergency 

preparedness activities, which may include improving interoperable communications. 

b

In fiscal year 2004, this grant program’s name changed from State Homeland Security Grant to 

Homeland Security Grant Program (HSGP). The new grant program includes three different grant 

programs. 

c

Until fiscal year 2004, this program was administered by the FEMA. 

Despite federal efforts within DHS to synthesize federal grants, various 

agencies have statutory language that make it difficult to coordinate their 

use. For example, both SAFECOM and COPS officials said that certain 

statutory provisions underlying the grant programs presented barriers to 

the coordination efforts of COPS, FEMA, and SAFECOM to consolidate 

the grant application process for the 2003 Interoperable Communications 

Equipment grants. COPS and FEMA coordinated their application process 

for the grants and used sections of the SAFECOM grant guidance to guide 

their application requirements. According to COPS and FEMA officials, the 

combined COPS and FEMA application process was intended to maximize 

the use of funds and reduce duplication and competition between the two 

agencies’ Interoperability grants. Both COPS and SAFECOM officials 

explained that COPS and FEMA encountered difficulty in creating a 
Appendix V: Federal Grant Structure Does 

Not Fully Support Interoperability Planning 

Page 77 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

combined grant application process because the COPS grant required a 

twenty-five percent match while the FEMA grant did not have such a 

requirement. However, COPS officials said FEMA added a twenty-five 

percent match of “in-kind” resources to its grant requirements in order to 

reduce competition between the COPS and FEMA grant programs. 

In addition to matching requirements, the underlying statutory language 

for COPS and FEMA interoperable communications grants made it 

difficult to incorporate some of the SAFECOM grant guidance 

recommendations. For example, SAFECOM grant guidance recommended 

that applicants conduct planning for developing public safety 

communications and specified eligible planning activities. However, the 

underlying statutory language for the COPS and FEMA grants focuses on 

the purchase of equipment without specifically addressing planning. COPS 

and FEMA officials said that they were able to justify allowing certain 

planning activities directly related to the purchase of equipment, but could 

not require that funds be used to develop a communications system. 

SAFECOM grant guidance also recommended addressing maintenance and 

other life-cycle costs of communications equipment; however, the 

statutory language underlying COPS and FEMA interoperable 

communications equipment grants focuses on funding the purchase of 

equipment rather than maintenance and other related costs. 
Appendix V: Federal Grant Structure Does 

Not Fully Support Interoperability Planning 

Page 78 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

Federal officials that we spoke with agreed that, generally, there is no 

high-level review of communications interoperability across the federal 

government to ensure that the full range of granted projects compliment 

each other and add to overall statewide and national interoperability. Each 

agency reviews its own set of applications and projects. As a result, grants 

can be given to bordering jurisdictions that propose conflicting 

interoperability solutions. For fiscal year 2003, federal officials from COPS 

and FEMA attempted to eliminate awarding funds to conflicting 

communication systems within bordering jurisdictions by selecting 

different applicant pools and coordinating their review of grant proposals. 

The COPS office selected the largest MSAs from each state and territory as 

well as the 50 largest MSA’s regardless of state, to apply for COPS funds.7

FEMA requested that the governor of each state nominate one lead 

jurisdiction to submit a grant proposal, taking into account the state’s 

demographics and the location of critical infrastructure. In addition to 

selecting applicants from different jurisdictions, COPS and FEMA engaged 

in a process to ensure that projects from neighboring jurisdictions did not 

conflict with or duplicate each other. The collaboration that occurred 

between COPS and FEMA to review the 2003 Interoperable 

Communications Equipment grant proposals was a step forward, however, 

these agencies constitute only two of several federal agencies that provide 

funds for communications interoperability. 

A coordinated high-level review of key federal grant programs that award 

funds for communication purposes does not exist. In response to this 

challenge, SAFECOM has recently sponsored the formation of the Federal 

Interagency Coordination Committee (FICC), which includes a federal 

grant coordination working group. The FICC is an informal council 

consisting of federal agencies, whose mission is to help local, tribal, state 

and federal public safety agencies improve public safety response through 

more effective and efficient interoperable wireless communications by 

reducing duplication in programs and activities, identifying and promoting 

best practices and coordinating federal grants, technical assistance, 

 7

The COPS Application Guidance states that after eliminating duplicate MSAs from the two 

categories, their methodology resulted in the identification of 74 candidates that could 

apply for the grant. A lead jurisdiction was designated within the MSA to promote multijurisdictional, interoperable partnerships with neighboring localities. In the application 

guidance a Metropolitan Statistical Areas was defined as a core area containing a large 

population nucleus, together with adjacent communities having a high degree of economic 

and social integration with that core. 

No Coordinated 

Federal or State Grant 

Review Exists to 

Ensure Funds Are 

Used to Improve 

Regional or Statewide 

Communications 

Interoperability 
Appendix V: Federal Grant Structure Does 

Not Fully Support Interoperability Planning 

Page 79 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

training, and standards.8 Federal officials said that FICC will assist in 

shaping the common grant guidance for federal initiatives involving public 

safety communications. As of April 23, 2004, officials said that FICC has 

held two meetings. 

State governments that we visited also did not have a coordinated or 

centralized grant review process to ensure that communications grant 

funds in the programs that we reviewed were being used to support 

projects that were complimentary and not duplicative. Florida State 

Technology Office (STO) officials, who are members of Florida’s Domestic 

Security Oversight Board (DSOB), said that the DSOB was concerned that 

there was no overall centralized review of grant applications for federal 

funding and no central review of federal funds passing through the state to 

local governments.9

 For example, STO has the statutory authority to 

review plans for new or expanded communication systems. However, STO 

officials said that some local communications plans are not reviewed by 

the state because there is no requirement that locals must submit their 

plan to STO for review before grant approval.10 Florida is now developing a 

funding working group under the DSOB to review funding requests for 

communication interoperability. 

Officials that we spoke with in California also acknowledged that there 

has been no centralized grant review process for funds that can be used 

for communications interoperability. Officials from the grants 

administration division within the Office of Emergency Services said that 

they do not have a centralized review of grant funds in California because 

several state and local agencies receive funds directly to their agencies or 

jurisdictions from the federal government. 

Local officials were concerned that this lack of a coordinated review of 

grants used across the state for communications interoperability can 

 8

Proposed FICC members are federal agencies within the DOJ, DHS, Defense, Agriculture, 

and Commerce. 

9

The Domestic Security Oversight Board prepares Domestic Security Funding 

Recommendations—including recommendations for funding interoperable 

communications—to the governor and state and legislature. Decisions on the used of 

federal and state homeland security funds are based upon the recommendations of the 

oversight board. 

10STO officials said that the one exception to this rule is their review of Emergency Medical 

Services grants, which requires a state-level review before approval for federal or state 

funds. 
Appendix V: Federal Grant Structure Does 

Not Fully Support Interoperability Planning 

Page 80 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

result in grants being awarded to bordering jurisdictions or localities that 

propose conflicting interoperability solutions and, therefore, compound 

existing barriers to regional or statewide interoperability. As a result, the 

state of Washington has set up a structure to facilitate centralized grant 

review of federal and state funding to ensure that they promote regional 

interoperability. Officials intend to use a statewide communications plan 

being developed by their State Interoperability Executive Committee 

(SIEC) to review local funding proposals. 

Currently, there is no database that can be used as a tool for coordinating 

federal or state oversight of funding for interoperable communications 

systems. SAFECOM is currently engaged in an effort with DOJ to create a 

“collaborative clearinghouse” that could facilitate federal oversight of 

interoperable communications funding to neighboring jurisdictions and 

allow states access to this information for planning purposes. The 

database is intended to decrease duplication of funding and evaluation 

efforts, de-conflict the application process, maximize efficiency of limited 

federal funding, and serve as a data collection tool for lessons learned that 

would be accessible to state and locals. According to federal officials, this 

database is operational; however, its use is limited in its ability to 

coordinate federal oversight of grant funds for several reasons. First, the 

database does not contain information from the majority of relevant 

federal agencies and SAFECOM has no enforcement authority to require 

that all federal agencies provide information to the database or use it 

guide decisions in their grant approval process. 

In addition, SAFECOM officials said that it is unclear how to obtain the 

needed information from formula grants on the use of federal funds for 

communications. The State Homeland Security grant issued by ODP is a 

large grant provided to states that can be used for communications 

interoperability, among other things. However, federal officials said that 

once these funds enter the states, there is no reporting obligation on the 

use of the funds by jurisdiction—this information is lost. According to 

these officials, formula grants that go directly to the jurisdictions, like the 

ODP UASI grants, have the potential to be tracked and used within the 

database if ODP provides application and award information for the 

database. The officials said that, as a result of limitations that may exist in 

obtaining the relevant information from formula grants, the database 

would likely only include information from discretionary grants, earmarks, 

or grants provided directly to the local jurisdictions. 

No Comprehensive 

Grant Database Exists 

that Can Be Used to 

Facilitate Federal 

Oversight and 

Coordination of 

Funding to 

Jurisdictions 
Appendix VI: Comments from the Department 

of Commerce 

Page 81 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

Appendix VI: Comments from the 

Department of Commerce 
Appendix VI: Comments from the Department 

of Commerce 

Page 82 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 
Appendix VII: Comments from the Department of Homeland Security 

Page 83 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

Appendix VII: Comments from the 

Department of Homeland Security 
Appendix VII: Comments from the Department of Homeland Security 

Page 84 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 
Appendix VII: Comments from the Department of Homeland Security 

Page 85 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 
Appendix VII: Comments from the Department of Homeland Security 

Page 86 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 
Appendix VII: Comments from the Department of Homeland Security 

Page 87 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 
Appendix VII: Comments from the Department of Homeland Security 

Page 88 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 
Appendix VII: Comments from the Department of Homeland Security 

Page 89 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 
Appendix VIII: GAO Contacts and Staff 

Acknowledgments 

Page 90 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

William O. Jenkins (202) 512-8777 

Thomas James (202) 512-2996 

In addition to the above, Leo Barbour, Karen Burke, Katherine Davis, Sally 

Gilley, Robert Hadley, Latesha Love, Gary Malavenda, and Shirley Perry 

made contributions to this report. 

Appendix VIII: GAO Contacts and Staff 

Acknowledgments 

GAO Contacts 

Staff 

Acknowledgments 
GAO Related Products 

Page 91 GAO-04-740 Homeland Security 

Information Technology: The Federal Enterprise Architecture and 

Agencies Enterprise Architectures Are Still Maturing. GAO-04-798T. 

Washington, D.C.: May 19, 2004. 

Project SAFECOM: Key Cross-Agency Emergency Communications 

Effort Requires Stronger Collaboration. GAO-04-494. Washington, D.C.: 

April 16, 2004. 

Homeland Security: Challenges in Achieving Interoperable 

Communications for First Responders. GAO 04-231T. Washington, D.C.: 

November 6, 2003. 

Reforming Federal Grants to Better Meet Outstanding Needs. 

GAO-03-1146T. Washington, D.C.: September 3, 2003. 

Telecommunications: Comprehensive Review Of U.S. Spectrum 

Management With Broad Stakeholder Involvement Is Needed. 

GAO-03-277. Washington, D.C.: January 31, 2003. 

Telecommunications: Better Coordination and Enhanced Accountability 

Needed to Improve Spectrum Management. GAO-02-906. Washington, 

D.C.: September 26, 2002. 

GAO Related Products 
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