Granted, DHS had a funding problem
Is antiterrorism money going to the most deserving?
DHS also has a problem with outdated and sometimes absurd data. A list the department put together of state-reported terrorism targets was roasted by both the DHS's inspector general and congressional auditors this year. Targets listed in the 77,000-item database included such places as the Old MacDonald's Petting Zoo in Woodville, Ala., and the Annual Mule Day Parade in Columbia, Tenn., prompting one report to say the list "lacks credibility." DHS insists it uses a refined database of 600 to 1,500 targets when allocating funds, but "even the short list has its big-time problems," says Tim Manning, who oversees grants for New Mexico.
Add to that potential ethical troubles. A report in the Washington Post this month said that DHS was examining whether two former employees of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory improperly directed $20 million to that institution-to manage the targets database, no less-while working at DHS. Foresman insists the now concluded "review" was part of what he hopes will be a routine vetting of major expenditures. But a portion of an additional $40 million headed to the lab has since been sent elsewhere.
Optimists hope such moves are signs of needed change. Sources say Henke was forced out because of the handling of the urban areas grants; the plan now is to communicate more with state officials and add a new layer of federal oversight. And this fall DHS announced the results of two smaller grant programs, both of which boosted New York's funding over the previous fiscal year-in one case, by almost 400 percent. DHS now has to focus on merging the grants office into a beefed-up Federal Emergency Management Agency, a move Congress approved as part of recent Hurricane Katrina-inspired reforms. "It's not clear yet" if that's good or bad for the grants office, says Albert Ashwood, head of the National Emergency Management Association. But some would contend that there's nowhere to go but up.
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