DHS To Give $6.9 Billion To State and Local Govt.

"There are several cyclical homeland security grant programs through which the majority of funds are distributed year after year," explains Meredith Luttner, manager of public sector operations at Input. The report identifies three major homeland security grant programs that accounted for nearly half of the funds distributed to states and localities by DHS in 2003: the Office of Domestic Preparedness' FY03 State Homeland Security Grant Programs (SHSGPI and SHSGPII), the Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program and the Urban Areas Security Initiative (UASI).

According to the report, these grant programs will be refreshed in 2004 to a total of $3.7 billion, more than half of the total grant funding available. In 2004, the renamed Homeland Security Grant Program (HSGP) will consolidate SHSGP with two other previously separate grant projects and have a total of $2.2 billion set aside for the new HSGP program. The Assistance to Firefighters Program is anticipated to be valued at nearly $750 million for FY04 and $725 million will be available through the UASI grant program.

"Some trends can be identified by looking at these major grant programs in DHS. Grant programs are being consolidated and a concerted effort is being placed on pushing money to localities through the states," Luttner says.

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