Tracking Homeland Security Funding

By G.W. Schulz | Center for Investigative Reporting | February 16, 2010 | | Print this

The terrorist hijackings of Sept. 11, 2001, led to a bonanza of funding for new security measures. Billions have been spent by the federal government in the name of homeland security, and chunks of that cash have gone to each of the 50 states, and hundreds of localities as part of a grab-bag of federal grant programs.

Since the fall of 2008, reporters from the Center for Investigative Reporting and The Center for Public Integrity have been working together to determine how these funds have been managed. Our findings are encapsuled here in this interactive map, where you’ll find not just new information about the use of readiness funds but also vignettes illustrating how different states figure into the recent history of homeland security.

In compiling the map, our reporters used open-records laws, approaching every state and Washington, D.C., in search of data showing how and where officials have utilized homeland security funds. Responses among the jurisdictions varied. We also reviewed thousands of pages of government documents — from auditors, public-interest groups, the federal Government Accountability Office, the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general, the Congressional Research Service and congressional committees.

Among the findings:

• A $54,000 response trailer went virtually untouched in one Colorado community for four years. Another sat behind a fire station in Michigan with weeds growing around it.
• Louisiana bought dozens of new Dodge Durango SUVs totaling $1.4 million.
• In West Virginia, authorities used $3,000 for lapel pins and tens of thousands more went to unallowable overtime.
• The nation’s capital region spent $4.6 million on a media blitz to promote readiness.

Vast amounts of the material we gathered can be downloaded by visitors as compressed folders available in each of our map’s state profiles — folders providing a wealth of additional detail. 

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