The Homeland Security Grant Program (HSGP) is a grant made by the federal government through the Department of Homeland Security in order to enhance the National Preparedness System. According to Gilliard-Matthews & Schneider (2010), this is particularly aimed at building, sustaining and delivering the core capability that is required in order to realize the National Preparedness goal of a secure and resilient country in times of emergencies and national disasters. It is mentionable that these capabilities are not exclusively mandated to a single government entity but rather, they are perceived to be the responsibility of the whole community. As such, the grants are allocated to both state and local governments. The core capabilities are primarily based on prevention, protection, mitigation, response, and recovery measures, based on the cost provisions allocated. The Homeland Security Grant Program is thus comprised of three interrelated grant programs, which include the State Homeland Security Program, the Urban Areas Security Initiative, and the Operation Stonegarden grant. These grants have specific purposes and are thus administered depending on the specific necessity requiring their utilization. The utilization of the funds allocated for the grants is accounted for by the Government Accountability Office.
For the purpose of this paper, the discussion will specifically address the process of application and allocation of preparedness grants with a view to identifying the opportunities that can be exploited to enhance their efficiency, as well as the challenges and obstacles that face this process. According to Kemp (2012), the most significant opportunity that can enhance their efficiency is through streamlining the application and allocation process in order to avoid the risk of duplication among grant applicants. Consequently, this requires effective risk assessment and management so as to provide accurate information during prioritization and coordination of the projects identified. The Federal Emergency Management Agency in conjunction with the Department of Homeland Security should, therefore, focus on improving grant accountability through efficient internal control systems and performance appraisal measures in the management of allocated grants.
To this end, the opportunities that exist are largely associated with improving accountability and grant management, particularly in the application and coordination phases. Efficient internal control systems require the preparation of policies and procedural measures by responsible agencies prior to allocation of the grants (Burruss, Giblin, & Schafer, 2010). In addition, the information on the grants should be consolidated into one information system so as to improve their management. It is also reasonable to provide relevant training to the staff of both the awarding departments and the grantees of the funds. On the other hand, grant appraisal measures should entail the linking of target program activities to the program goals. As such, the grantees should be involved in the development of the performance measures so as to provide guidelines on the expected outcomes of the grants awarded.
It is also important to review the pre-award process, where the risk of unaccountability by the applicant is objectively assessed. Additionally, competing grants should be reviewed in order to improve on accountability. This can be achieved through preparation of workable plans that highlight the framework of the planned project. Furthermore, management performance provides a feasible opportunity to monitor the financial requirements and status of the allowable grants. William (2012) explains that performance management, in this case, ensures that the intended results are attained. In addition, audit systems should be improved to provide relevant information about the grant applicants. Finally, the assessment should provide a basis for evaluating project success as well as feasible measures to improve on performance in the future.
In regard to the operational and management challenges facing the grants, it is apparent that the main predicament is associated with the accountability in the process of applying and allocating the grants for different programs (Kiltz, 2011). Indeed, the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency are occasionally faced with enormous difficulties in implementing longstanding plans due to accountability challenges. These challenges include assessing the capabilities in regard to validating the aggregate data from federal, state, local and tribal governments, which are the main beneficiaries of preparedness grants. For instance, the Department of Homeland Security has been developing plans to evaluate preparedness of various agencies by assessing their capabilities since 2004. However, this has been dragged on over the years and no tangible results have been realized.
On the other hand, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has also been struggling since 2011 to develop and implement a comprehensive, and measurable national preparedness assessment policy, based on capabilities and existing gaps. This is yet to be completed, prompting the Government Accountability Office to propose to Congress the possibility of limiting preparedness grants until the assessment of the gaps, based on tiered, and capability-specific objectives, was complete in order to facilitate prioritization and accountability of the funds allocated. Consequently, Congress reduced the funds allocated to the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the following financial year by $875 million below the requested amount. In the subsequent year, this was further slashed by $1.28 billion below the requested amount (William, 2012). For this reason, Kiltz (2011) asserts that the major challenge facing the effective and efficient utilization of the preparedness grants is primarily associated with the entire planning process of prioritizing, allocation and accountability of the funds allocated.
Finally, the obstacles facing the preparedness funds are primarily based on the apparent overlap of the grant goals, recipients, geographical locations, as well as inconsistent levels of information available to the Federal Emergency Management Agency regarding the grant programs as well as recipients of the grants (Kiltz & Ramsay, 2012). In particular, the preparedness grants identified are characterized by overlapping goals and hence duplication of the activities to be funded. These overlapping goals mostly pertain to the provision of equipment, personnel training, as well as overlapping jurisdictions. For instance, every state and all eligible areas are entitled to receive legislatively-designated minimum funds of State Homeland Security Program in order to develop basic levels of preparedness. On the other hand, Urban Areas Security Grants are expressly meant for urban areas that face a high risk of terrorist attacks. However in practice, the jurisdictions that are designated under the Urban Areas Security Initiative also apply and are subsequently allocated the State Homeland Security Program funds.
This duplication of functions under similar jurisdictions is inherent from the existing policies, which in turn complicates the accountability standards required in the use of the allocated funds. In addition, the difference in the information requirements by the Federal Emergency Management Agency from the various applicants implies that the agency is forced to make the allocation decision based on varying standards (William, 2012). This in turn compromises the accountability standards as required by the Government Accountability Office, yet the disclosures required are legislative provisions that are beyond the agency’s policy scope.
Analysis of the Preparedness of sub-grants
To begin with, the State Homeland Security Program is primarily meant to support the implementation of different risk associated, capabilities-based strategies, with a view to addressing the capability goals set in designated urban areas, state, as well as regional Threats and Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment. The capability goals in the case are identified during the threat and hazard identification phase, and then assessed and reported in the State Preparedness Report. In this case, the goal is to facilitate planning, coordination, organization, training, and testing of the needs that are necessary to prevent, mitigate, respond and recover from possible acts of terrorism and disasters. The grant is eligible to the State Administrative Agency, 50 designated states, District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Gaum, Northern Mariana Islands, as well as the Virgin Islands (Federal Emergency Management Agency, 2014).
The major obstacle facing this grant is that the minimum amounts are legislatively administered. On the other hand, the challenge facing the fund is that the overall risk assessment methodology is inherent from the Department of Homeland Security, hence the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed programs. The opportunity that exists to the eligible jurisdiction mostly relates to accountability of the funds allocated. In this case, the eligible applicants should provide elaborate descriptions of their proposed programs as highlighted in the Investment Justification provisions. The descriptions should be aligned to the Threats and Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment identified, as well as the State Preparedness Report objectives for the specific region (Federal Emergency Management Agency, 2014).
Secondly, the Urban Security Initiative is meant to cater for the unique risk factors and capability based aspects. The main issues addressed are planning, organization coordination, training and assessing the needs of high threats in highly populated urban areas. Similarly, the assessment is based on the capability targets that are aligned to the Threats and Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment outcomes and the State Preparedness Report goals. This aims at assisting these areas to enhance their capacity to prevent, mitigate, respond, and recover from terrorist activities. Caudle (2009) explains that the State Administrative Agency is the only eligible state agency for this grant, in addition to 100 most populous urban areas as defined in the 9/11 USA Patriotic Act.
Again the allocation methodology is the major obstacle to the implementation of this program since the risk level and expected efficiency of the proposed programs is primarily determined through the Department of Homeland Security risk assessment. The challenges are also typical to those outlined for the State Homeland Security Program. In addition, analysis of the relative risk of a terrorist attack in the eligible areas is also conducted, which is primarily based on the Homeland Security Act of 2002 (Federal Emergency Management Agency, 2014). The opportunities that are apparent, in this case, entail objective analysis of the risk of terrorism in these areas, so as to provide accurate and updated information to facilitate effective decision making during the allocation phase.
Finally, the Operation Stonegarden Grant is primarily intended to enhance integration and coordination among federal, local, tribal and territorial law enforcement agencies in order to secure the country’s porous international borders, as well as travel corridors including the international water borders. In this case, the grant also eligible to the State Administrative Agency, in addition to local county governments and recognized tribal governments. These territories are in states bordering Canada, Mexico, as well as all territories bordering international water borders. However, in this case, the inherent risk of the funds allocated is inherent from the priorities defined under the USA Customs and Border Protection Sector (Federal Emergency Management Agency, 2014). These guidelines are based on specific border risk assessment, hence posing a regulatory obstacle since the factors considered are mostly limited to vulnerability, threat factors, miles of the border, and intelligence information which the local authorities may not be privy to. Proper coordination and timely sharing of all the intelligence information gathered should be enhanced to improve the efficiency and productivity of the funds allocated.
Conclusion
In conclusion, and based on the analysis on the level of preparedness that the grants are supposed to cater for, it is apparent that there exists a number of administrative concerns that need to be addressed if the funds provided are to be utilized effectively. The most sensitive of these issues is to do with efficient auditing and overall accountability of the grants issued. The Government Accountability Office insists that the application and allocation process need to be streamlined in order to enhance on accountability as well as provide opportunities for more benefits to be achieved through the grants as intended. To this end, it is competing grants and projects need to be assessed more objectively in order to avoid the risk of duplication of application to benefit from the grants awarded. Indeed, the highlighted overlap of the grant’s goals, recipients, geographical locations, as well as inconsistent levels of information available are some of the most important obstacles that need to be addressed both in the short term and in the long term, so as to enhance delivery of required services more efficiently and effectively.
