DHS Announces Significant Changes in 2008 Grant Guidelines

Among the major items in the new Grant Guidance are:

• The department is focusing on three funding priorities for FY 2008:
• measuring progress against the National Preparedness Guidelines
• strengthening preparedness planning
• strengthen IED prevention, protection and recovery
• Law Enforcement Activities will become part of both the State Homeland Security Program (SHSP) and Urban Areas Security Initiative (UASI) programs, with a requirement to spend at least 25 percent of each award on these important prevention and protection activities.  This will result in an increase of more than $66 million dollars from FY 2007 on prevention activities alone
• The department is more narrowly focusing the funding priorities this year, with the goal of targeting funding where the largest gaps reside
• As a result of the Post Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act, the 10 FEMA regions will have an enhanced role in grant activities
• The burden on grantees will be reduced as the Enhancement Plan portion of the application has been replaced by the State Preparedness Report
• The department's risk methodology for the grants has been revised to reflect input from the 9/11 Act, including the use of Metropolitan Statistical Areas
• The department's port-wide risk management activities have expanded this year, and include ports in Group 2, instead of only Group 1
• The department is also releasing many grant programs on the same day, with the goal of getting application materials out to the eligible applicants approximately two weeks sooner than last year's timeline

The Homeland Security Grant Program (HSGP) will account for approximately $1.69 Billion of the estimated $3Billlion in grants. The HSGP includes programs such as the National Incident Management System (NIMS) National Response Framework (NRF) and the National Infrastructure Protection Plan.

Under the new Guidelines 25 percent of the overall funding of these programs must address preparedness for mitigating the threat of improvised explosive devices.

Another major change has been made to the Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) program. Using Census data, fifteen new regions have been designated as Tier II Urban Areas and can compete for the UASI funds that are reserved for high-risk, high density urban areas. The new regions designated as Tier II regions are:

Riverside, CT

Bridgeport, CT

Hartford, CT

Louisville, KY

Baton Rouge, LA

Albany, NY

Buffalo, NY

Rochester,

NY

Toledo, OH

San Juan, PR

Nashville, TN

Austin, TX

Salt Lake City, UT

Richmond, VA

For links to the DHS Grants Guidance document, the DHS Grants Office and complete information on the changes to the 2008 DHS Grants Programs, go to the DHS Grants Resource Center on www.govtech.com/em/