SPEAKOUT: Securing homeland security funds

By Sen. Tom Wiens

Saturday, January 19, 2008

Recent government findings indicate that Colorado has squandered millions of dollars in taxpayer money devoted to enhancing our homeland security efforts here. Fortunately, a new bipartisan effort from the Colorado Senate provides the opportunity for the type of oversight we need to ensure the right direction for our future.

Four years have passed since then-Gov. Bill Owens announced his strategy for dispersing more than $156 million in federal funds between different state and local agencies. From the very beginning, I was an outspoken critic, acknowledging what should have been obvious: the strategy lacked sufficient checks and balances and had no vision for an end product to be produced for the people of Colorado with all of this money. Unfortunately, as millions of dollars were divided up among often unaccountable sources, my concerns fell on deaf ears as then-Senate President Joan FitzGerald dismantled the Senate Select Committee on Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness.

I am hopeful, however, that we can learn from the mistakes of the past, which in Colorado, often resulted from the fact that funding didn't follow clearly established priorities - rather, it dictated them.

With such a significant taxpayer investment, both the executive and legislative branches should have taken seriously our obligation to direct this money in the most effective manner possible. Instead, money flew out the door faster than you could say Osama bin Laden.

Being good stewards of money used to protect Colorado citizens is arguably the most important job a governor and a legislature can do. In an audit released earlier this month, the federal government concluded that the previous administration failed to provide adequate oversight of grant applications, failed to monitor contractors and government agencies, and equipment purchased to assist in emergency situations has sat collecting dust in boxes. According to our state auditor, both federal and state regulations were ignored in the process, which created an environment of mistrust of the executive branch by the legislature. Ultimately, there was little done right.

And now it may be taxpayers who will have to foot the bill as the federal government justifiably considers requiring the state to pay back nearly $8 million of the money it received. That's a big chuck of change at a time when families, including my own, remain concerned about our increasing tax burden at every level. This is even before we begin discussing our federal deficit, which now stands at more than $9 trillion.

This waste is especially unfortunate because the funds we received from Washington could have served not only our interests in preparing for, preventing, or reacting to terrorist attacks, but also other essential areas of our emergency preparedness strategy. Unfortunately, Colorado didn't really have a strategy.

As the federal government's recent audit revealed, Colorado has failed to take seriously its obligation to have a fully integrated and thought-out strategy for the end products of emergency preparedness. We have to have a strategy that produces the best possible emergency readiness for our citizens and includes a survivable, fully integrated, emergency command-and-control system that can survive terrorist and natural disasters, so that when others come to help us, they have something to plug into.

This week, Senate President Peter Groff announced the re-establishment of the Senate select committee on homeland security. I will serve on this panel. Our system can work only if we have sufficient oversight of these funds by knowledgeable legislators. I'm hopeful and determined that we are entering a new era of cooperation and accountability.

While politics is all too often personal - and partisan - both parties are to blame in their failure to oversee our homeland security funds. In moving forward, I hope to work closely with Gov. Bill Ritter, legislative leadership and the new, highly respected Homeland Security Director Gen. Mason Whitney and former State Auditor Joanne Hill to assure that we get our state back on the right track.

Every dollar sent from Washington to Colorado must be properly utilized. And while we don't know when we'll face another Hayman Fire, another shooting in a church, school or shopping center or, even worse, a massive terrorist attack, we can and must stand united and prepared to face such catastrophes. The future of the people of Colorado could depend upon on it.

Tom Wiens represents Colorado's 4th Senate District, which includes southern Douglas, northern El Paso, Teller, Park and Lake counties.