Apr 9, 2002 3 min read

WASHINGTON (AP) – The Justice Department has failed to distribute more than half the hundreds of millions of dollars available to state and local governments for anti-terrorism programs since 1998, according to a report Monday by the department’s inspector general. The department hasn’t awarded $141 million out of the $243 million Congress made available to state and local governments for equipment purchases by fire and emergency services departments, the report said.

The money the department did give away includes $65 million that never was actually spent, plus $1 million spent on equipment that either has been lost, wasn’t supported or never was given to firefighters in the field.

Six government agencies told U.S. oversight officials that they couldn’t find the equipment they purchased with the federal money: Wayne County, Mich.; Clark County, Nev.; Hillsborough County, Fla.; Detroit, Mich.; Fairfax County, Va.; and Cobb County, Ga.

The equipment in question in Fairfax and Cobb counties was worth less than $1,000 each, and officials in Cobb and Hillsborough counties later told the Justice Department they were able to locate the missing equipment.

The government said that officials in four locations decided to keep their equipment in storage rather than immediately giving it to firefighters: Dallas County, Texas; Westchester County, N.Y.; Memphis, Tenn.; and the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency.

The cities with the largest unspent grants were New York City, Chicago and Detroit.

Without that money, state and local governments “do not increase their capability for responding to terrorist acts as adequately as they could,” the report said.

U.S. officials also cited delays from local red tape. City officials in New York, Chicago and Detroit complained to the inspector general’s office about problems with accounting codes or delays by city council approvals.

The anti-terrorism program, which started in 1997 after the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City, provides money for equipment for the nation’s firefighters, police and paramedics, who would be first on the scene after a major terrorist attack. The equipment includes personal protective gear, detection devices for chemical or biological attacks, decontamination facilities and radios.

The inspector general’s report said delays apparently stemmed largely from a congressional requirement that states asking for money must develop a “comprehensive domestic preparedness plan.” It said the department actually gave states only about $3 million of $75.7 million it promised during fiscal 2001.

The grants are awarded through the Justice Department’s Office for Domestic Preparedness, which the Bush administration has proposed moving to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. A Justice spokesman declined to comment Monday about the report’s findings.

The inspector general’s report did not find that the Justice office was wasting money, saying that its administrative costs of $8 million – or roughly 5 percent of the program’s total costs – were reasonable.

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On the Net:

DOJ Inspector General: http://www.usdoj.gov/oig

DOJ Office of Justice Programs: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/terrorism/whats-new.htm