Mayors, states still squabbling over Homeland funding

Mar 5, 2004 12:00 PM

The nation's mayors and state authorities continue to fight over Homeland security funding.
The federal funds are aimed at detection and prevention of terrorist actions, but mayors say they're not getting what they need. Governors get the money from the federal government, then parcel it out within their states.
Washington state Adjutant Gen. Tim Lowenberg, who oversees Homeland security there, compared the complaining mayors to 6-year-old children in a soccer game. "Everyone's focused now on how to kick the ball, the money ball," he told The Associated Press. "They are all kicking themselves in the shins to get it." The executive director of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, Tom Cochran, says the comparison is "an insult."
The conference's surveys have found that many cities haven't gotten federal funds for so-called first responders like police and airport security.
State Homeland security chiefs and governors question the conference's research, arguing that some mayors don't understand the law, and say that some mayors received the money but didn't know it.
Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge met privately with governors over the weekend in Washington and asked them to get the money to cities more quickly, and to better track the funds.

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