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Moderator: Peter
Harkness, Editor and Publisher, Governing magazine
State and local governments
see possibilities as well as problems with the proposed U.S.
Department of Homeland Security. Some participants believed
that the new department would improve coordination among federal
agencies and across other levels of government that are involved
in homeland security, permit consolidated and streamlined
grants to state and local governments, provide more comprehensive
leadership for national strategy to increase homeland security,
and help to focus on priority goals and activities. Others
maintained that creation of a new agency would get in the
way of the effective relationships states and localities have
established with existing federal agencies. Based on experience
with organizing and restructuring large federal agencies,
several participants anticipated that getting a new federal
department of such magnitude up and running could take 8-10
years and could distract attention from the more important
factors in improving homeland security.
The factor most often cited as critical
to increased homeland security for all sectors and levels
of government was improved coordination and cooperation among
the parties. The agencies and other groups involved in homeland
security in federal, state, county, city, and regional government,
private corporations, and volunteer and non-profit sector
are numerous and fragmented. Their goals and actions are often
not coordinated; they do not always know each other or have
the ability to communicate readily.
Panel moderator Peter Harkness opened the
forum by observing that on homeland security issues the federal
government and the press are worrying about the wrong things--federal
programs and institutional structures. "The story is
always the same," he said. "Nobody talks to each
other--within states, across agencies, and up and down the
federal food chain."
Paul Posner of GAO agreed: "How you
organize the Department of Homeland Security is not the most
important thing. The real challenges are how you mesh all
these actors on a national issue, especially after the urgency
goes away. How do you overcome these stovepipes?" He
posed the question of whether there are any models of national
partnerships to deal with issues of this scope and importance-
not federal but national.
He noted that very little is federally owned
or controlled. The federal government has tried mandates and
preemptions but it does not have that much power to dictate
what gets done. Through partnerships, the federal government
can gain influence and work through thousands of other agencies
and groups. He pointed to the challenges of maintaining accountability
for state, local, and federal government, which can be obfuscated
when responsibilities are shared; sustaining the attention
and effort; sorting out needs and establishing priorities;
providing funds to those in states and localities who can
best use them without overcentralizing the fiscal burden.
After 50 years of centralization of functions, he asked if
the nation might be about to breach the boundaries between
federal and non-federal functions again.
Conceptually, he said, there is strong case to be made for
a Department of Homeland Security: it would be a great help
to have all the border security people work together, and
to have a single agency making federal grants. He noted that
federal funds are available for some homeland security purposes,
which could be funneled through states or directly to localities,
but he underlined the importance of having mechanisms to discourage
diversion of funds to other purposes.
Ray Scheppach of NGA began with the larger
context for the homeland security issue: the borderless nature
of the economy, which has driven a lot of changes for state
and local governments, accelerated by the events on September
11. He warned of the continuing trend for Congress to federalize
issues in the face of internationalization of the economy.
He agreed that coordination and cooperation
are key and pointed out that there are already many compacts
among agencies and governments. Though he did not think it
likely that the federal government would follow his recommendation,
he advised that to make progress on homeland security, the
nation should build on those arrangements and roll them up
from local to state to federal. As an example of the ability
of states to develop effective solutions to complex national
issues, he pointed to the agreement now being negotiated by
35 states to handle sales taxes across the country.
At the federal level, smaller agencies are
much easier for state and local governments to work with.
As an example he cited FEMA. Compared to the average rating
of 40% for most federal agencies, 98% of states indicate they
are comfortable working with FEMA. For him, the proposal for
a 170,000-person Department of Homeland Security goes in exactly
the opposite direction.
Representing the county perspective, Jeff
Arnold made the point that homeland security begins with community
security. He agreed that state and local coordination is absolutely
critical, which is why NaCo drafted language in the legislation
creating a Department of Homeland Security to establish an
Office of Intergovernmental Coordination in the Office of
the Secretary. In his view, working with a single agency rather
than 40 agencies would help state and local governments: ì3,000
counties support the idea of the new department if can be
done right, particularly if the FEMA model can be extended
to all 170,000 employees. He recognized that there will be
a lot of work to do in implementing the legislation, and that
flexibility will be essential.
He agreed that the challenge of improving
homeland security comes to money. Many localities have financial
problems; money has to get to the localities, even if it goes
through the states to counties, cities, or regions as in emergency
planning. Since problems roll downhill to the localities,
he emphasized the importance of a national strategy to protect
all critical infrastructure. NaCo is recommending a planning
model following the example of emergency preparedness with
regional goals and benchmarks, and accountability for all
parties, rather than the traditional focus on who gets the
credit.
His greatest concern is Congress and the
new layers of mandates it creates year after year that are
not compatible with previous mandates.
Beth Kellar, Acting Executive Director of
ICMA and chair of the Federal System Panel, agreed with the
"bottom up" approach to homeland security, not the
top down approach that TSA took with airport security. She
presented several lessons learned from previous experience:
it takes time for federal agencies including FEMA to develop
good working relationships with state and local governments,
and "cookie cutter" federal mandates without regard
to the local circumstances are not as effective as approaches
that tap state and local creativity. Her imperatives for homeland
security included compatibility of technology, coordination
of communications, continuity of government, and funding which
can get to local agencies relatively quickly, without a lot
of requirements.
Harkness and Kellar offered Y2K as an example
of how fragmented agencies and sectors can work together by
focusing on critical goals. The federal government provided
leadership, educating state and local governments and private
companies about the significance of the issue and creating
a focus for action. Costis Toregas outlined the vital lessons
from Y2K:
1 - The federal government avoided establishing powerful federal
control but instead used a very smart networked management
model.
2 - Since we didn't know exactly what would happen, local
leaders were encouraged to educate themselves to be ready
to respond to whatever occurred.
3 - Small is better--small, flexible individual nodes of action
working with each other.
In the homeland security issue, he is working
with ICMA, the federal Critical Infrastructure Assurance Office
(CIAO), local and private sector interests to decentralize
and devolve to actionable nodes below the federal level.
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