Report: Pork Barrel Spending Leading To Unfair Distribution of Fire Dept. Funds
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Congressional pork barrel spending has led to an unfair and unwise distribution of federal assistance to local fire departments, a report released yesterday by Rep. Carolyn Maloney said.
Administered by the Department of Homeland Security, the Assistance to Firefighters Program awarded $746 million in grants to fire departments in fiscal 2004. Because grants were capped at $750,000 a department, New York City received 12 cents for each resident. Montana, by contrast, received $7.84 per capita.
Ms. Maloney, along with Senators Clinton and Schumer, argues that the money should be distributed on the basis of risk, as the 9/11 Commission report recommended.
“New Yorkers are under threat every day. We cannot wait any longer for the funds we need,” Ms. Maloney said.
The Department of Homeland Security is authorized to waive the grant cap in cases of extraordinary need. Ms. Maloney called on the department’s secretary, Michael Chertoff, to do so “immediately.”
“President Bush says we can’t have a pre-9/11 mind-set, but Congress is ignoring real-world threats in order to fund pork barrel politics,” she said.
Ms. Maloney’s report found that Republican-controlled congressional districts received 58.18% of all grant money in fiscal 2004 – $1.72 million each on average, compared with $1.3 million for Democratic districts.
Of the 20 congressional districts that did not receive any grant funding in 2004, it found, Democrats controlled 18, and eight were in New York City. Washington, D.C., has not received grant funding since fiscal 2002.
The FDNY would have received $20.3 million in 2004 if the program had distributed its grant money based on population, and $110 million if it had used the same risk assessment as the department’s Urban Area Security Initiative, which assists law enforcement, according to the report.
The program’s reauthorization act, which Mr. Bush signed into law in October 2004, raised the cap on grants to fire departments that serve populations of more than 1 million people to $2.75 million, which would raise New York City’s to about 34 cents per capita.
The Homeland Security Appropriations Conference reported that funding for the grants would be reduced to $545 million for fiscal 2006, from $650 million in 2005.
