The money is in Bush's budget for the next fiscal year. Congress is all but sure to approve.
But will the money be well spent? Will a big chunk of it be siphoned off by the deficit-plagued state governments, naturally favored by ex-Gov. George W. Bush?
Regional Plans Required
Even more critical -- will the money be apportioned to make a little more sense of the mishmash of fire, police and emergency medical services run by the country's 18,000 cities and 3,000 counties, many packed together in metro regions?
Big cities, counties and smaller jurisdictions are all jockeying for position, hopeful they'll get cash for every item from fire trucks to new radio equipment to protective suits that personnel can wear after a chemical or biological attack.
The answer is to develop compacts, or work plans, for all metro and rural regions. Require joint training and cooperative equipment purchases. Insist on radio systems that are truly "interoperable" -- so that personnel from differing governments or departments can actually communicate in emergencies. Agree on chains of command, responsibilities of individual hospitals, how to deploy first responders in emergencies -- no matter which jurisdiction cuts their paychecks.
What's at stake isn't just "good government." It could be survival, saving hundreds or even thousands of lives, in a serious attack.
A Recipe for Disaster?
Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge seems to get this -- almost.
Mutual-aid agreements among local governments are critical, and the worst thing that could happen, Ridge told a meeting of the National Association of Regional Councils in late March, would be thousands of "localities running around getting their own thing."
The goal, he said, should be regionally based sharing of resources, "to get maximum benefit from public investments."
We absolutely need the country's 600 regional councils of governments to be involved in statewide and local planning processes, said Ridge.
But with equal fervor, Ridge said it's the states' emergency management teams that will administer the $3.5 billion for homeland security. He quickly added that the Bush administration wants to direct that at least three-quarters of the money goes to localities.
The big goal, he said: "To get the monies to communities quickly," giving them "flexibility to choose from a menu of choices," based on "what communities and regions need, not what Washington wants you to have."
That sounds great, but there are big holes. Too easily, said Michael Rogers, executive director of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, this could become nothing more than "a revenue sharing program."
What happens when metropolitan regions cross state lines, as many do? Will officials really cooperate? In the haste of response, will incompatible radio and GIS systems get funded?
"I hear tension between rapidity and making thoughtful decisions," cautioned David Warm, executive director of the Kansas City-based Mid-America Council of Governments, a bi-state organization that Ridge and others praise as a model of homeland security collaboration.
Channel the money through governors, said Warm, and many will resort to helter-skelter distribution as the path of least resistance.
"We may just be blowing $3.5 billion at the wall," he said. "Just dangle checks before mayors, and they have no incentive to collaborate."
Making Collaboration Work
Far better, he said, would be to require governors to work with local governments to designate a regional planning process so they share the funds intelligently.
"Don't just divide up the pie and buy stuff," he said.
Warm and others cite the model of the Department of Health and Human Services, which is ready to grant states $1.1 billion to combat impacts of bioterrorism -- but only when they submit specific time lines for regional plans to combat bio-terrorist threats, with accompanying hospital plans.
Too tough, too dictatorial toward states?
Not, apparently, to Tommy Thompson, the HHS secretary who learned most tricks of the trade in 14 innovative years as governor of Wisconsin.
Across the country, there are states and regions -- among them Florida, Vermont, Hartford, Conn., Denver, Dallas-Fort Worth, Columbus, Ohio, Portland, Ore., Hampton Roads, Va., and most recently the Washington National Capital region -- that are trying to get government and private-sector stakeholders to the table in fashioning innovative disaster response and anti-terrorism initiatives.
None are perfect; all are works in progress.
But they show it can be done, Americans' ornery independence notwithstanding. Smart federalism, the demand for a smart country in tough times, demands no less from all states and regions.
Neal R. Peirce, Special to Stateline.org
Neal Peirce's e-mail address is nrp@citistates.com.
