Port authority spending its own funds on security

Jan 23, 2007 3:26 PM

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has spent nearly $2.7 billion on security-related expenses since the Sept. 11 attacks -- most of it from its own pocket, the authority's deputy director has told a New Jersey legislative panel.

Jamie Fox told members of the Assembly Homeland Security and State Preparedness Committee that the bi-state authority has been forced to be self-sufficient because overall federal assistance is inadequate and because public authorities are eligible for funds only for port security, according to a report in the Newark Star-Ledger.

"They put into place a system for doling out these scarce resources that does not take public authorities such as the Port Authority into account," Fox says. "Year after year we see that this system does not work, and we must gain the ability to seek funding directly from the federal government."

Among its security-related improvements, the authority spent $139 million on a system that detects intrusions around the four airports it operates. It spends about $2.3 million weekly protecting Newark Liberty, Kennedy, LaGuardia and Teterboro airports. In the coming year, the authority will spent $394 million for police officers and emergency personnel -- up from $180 million in 2000, the Star Ledger reports.

It also is spending $18 million to install cigar-box-sized "black boxes" in all shipping containers to monitor them by satellite.

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