Security grant cash stays in state coffers

North Carolina has failed to spend almost 70 percent of federal homeland security grants since 2000, according to a report released Tuesday by State Auditor Ralph Campbell.

The money was given to the state to beef up homeland security and to prepare for bioterrorism attacks. The grants amount to about $200 million as of June 30.

"A year or so ago, Mr. Campbell asked the auditing team to look at this and keep track of the money," said Dennis Patterson, spokesman for the auditor's office.

"... No one was looking at where this money was coming from or going to."

About 10 percent of local agencies responsible for setting up homeland security programs turned down the money because complying with the federal regulations for spending grants is too complicated, Patterson said.

"Many didn't have the expertise to keep up with the grants and what the requirements were for spending them," he said.

The majority of grants earmarked for homeland security were spent by the N.C. Department of Crime Control and Public Safety.

"We have actually spent 50 percent of our grants," said Renee Hoffman, director of public affairs for the Department of Crime Control and Public Safety.

"This is a reimbursement program. We have two years to spend it. We could spend it all tomorrow, but it wouldn't be appropriate and wouldn't follow the right guidelines mandated by the government."

Hoffman said the money has been used for equipment, training and exercises for emergency responses.

Grants for protecting the state against bioterrorism attacks have gone to the Department of Health and Human Services, as well as eight other state agencies.

The state agencies that received the grant money have been working with the local governments to help put together emergency response programs.

With its portion of the grant money, the DHHS created the Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response, said Debbie Crane, director of public affairs at the DHHS.

"If there was a flu outbreak or, say, SARS outbreak, we could quickly respond."

Most of the DHHS' money goes to county governments, which in turn disperse it to local health departments, she said. A mobile hospital service for emergency medical care was one major investment of these funds.

The report also allowed some state and local agencies to identify unmet needs such as a collaborative communication system among first responders and funding to maintain and restock emergency supplies and equipment.

These unmet needs total up to $148 million in one-time costs and $17.7 million in upkeep.

But Patterson said most of the state's emergency response infrastructure already is largely in place because a busy hurricane season has required officials to provide immediate aid to state residents.

"The state really is more secure than it was after 9/11. Being fully secure is always difficult to achieve, though."

Contact the State & National Editor at stntdesk@unc.edu.