When it comes to Department of Homeland Security first-responder grant funding, many local fire officials are beginning to echo the Jerry Maguire catch phrase “Show me the money!”

DHS currently estimates it has given out about $8 billion to state and local governments under a variety of domestic preparedness programs developed since Sept. 11, 2001. That sum is over and above funds awarded directly to fire departments under the Assistance to Firefighters Program, which had $1.2 billion to distribute from FY 2001 to FY 2003.

The bulk of that $8 billion has gone to the states for terrorism preparedness programs under the Office for Domestic Preparedness, recently consolidated with the Office of State and Local Government Coordination.

DHS officials touted the $8 billion awarded many times at workshops and speeches in conjunction with National Fire & Emergency Services Day in Washington, D.C., on May 5. And just about every time they did, a local fire official stood up to ask, “Why haven't I seen any of that funding yet?”

A common belief among fire officials was that law enforcement was getting most of it. “The funding comes to the states and the police get the lion's share of it, and the fire service is coming up on the tail end of it,” complained one fire chief. “Are we in the fire service going to be able to get our fair share — not the lion's share, but just our fair share of the grants?”

Andy Mitchell, deputy director of the Office of State and Local Government Coordination and Response, said he gets such questions a lot these days. “It is not a revenue-sharing program,” Mitchell emphasized. “There is no guaranteed funding for any one jurisdiction.”

But Tim Beres, director of ODP State and Local Programs, said he wasn't sure how funding was being distributed once it reached the states. “Personally, I've met very few firefighters — or law enforcement officials for that matter — who say they have gotten equipment because of the funding. So I don't know where all the money is going,” Beres said.

Actually, it appears much of the money is not out there yet. In March, the DHS Office of the Inspector General released an audit on the spending of first-responder grants to the states. It concluded that states, local jurisdictions and first responder organizations have been “slow to receive and spend ODP first responder grant funds.”

As of February 2004, most of the $2.4 billion budgeted for ODP grants in FY 2002 and the FY 2003 had been awarded, but the funds still remained in the U.S. Treasury, the OIG report said. Only 36% of FY 2002 grants, 13% of first-round FY 2003 grants and 10% of second-round FY 2003 grants had reached first responder agencies.

The OIG report found that some states were very efficiently processing the grants, but many were slow to get funds out for several reasons, including planning, spending prior-year monies, administrative delays and inadequate staffing, and consensus-building. The report also cited a “communications disconnect” between local agencies and the states.

Distributing the money has proved to be a huge task for the states, said Suzanne Mencer, former ODP director and director of the Office of State and Local Government Coordination. In 2001, ODP was a small office under the Department of Justice with $200 million to distribute for terrorism; by FY 2004, DHS ramped up ODP funding to more than $3 billion.

“Never before have we passed through so much money and had so much money to distribute,” she said, adding that states are in the best position to do the job.

Mencer advised fire chiefs to get to know their states' homeland security director by calling the ODP Centralized Scheduling and Information Desk at 800-368-6498. For more information on homeland security grants under DHS, visit www.dhs.gov/grants.