Region's Security Funding Allocated

Metro to Get Money To Move Its Hub

Local officials will give Metro $4 million to relocate its control center outside the District but will scale back spending on other anti-terrorism projects -- from building a regional communications system to purchasing extra hospital beds -- because of an unexpected decline in federal funds, they said yesterday.

After weeks of discussions, local officials detailed how they will spend a $46 million homeland security grant for the capital region. The grant total, announced last month, was 40 percent less than the D.C. area received last year, prompting outrage in an area targeted in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

"Obviously, we didn't have the funds to do everything that we were hoping to do this cycle," said Robert P. Crouch Jr., Virginia's director of homeland security. He added, however, "it certainly doesn't mean that the region is worse off than it was last year."

Among the biggest losers from the funding cutback is a high-tech regional communications system that would allow officials to exchange data -- such as emergency management maps -- over a secure network. Local authorities had hoped to invest $25 million in the system this year; the project instead will get $5.5 million.

Edward D. Reiskin, deputy mayor for public safety in the District, said he had expected the system to be completed in five years. Because of the reduction, "we're going to stretch a five-year project to six years," he said.

Another cut affects a plan for hospitals to buy extra beds and equipment to cope with a crisis. Funding will decline from $4 million last year to $700,000 this year.

Jeffrey A. Elting, who coordinates bioterror response for the D.C. Hospital Association, said that under federal requirements, the D.C. area needed about 3,000 surplus beds for a catastrophe. In the two past years, the region has received anti-terror funds for about 1,000 beds.

The reduction "is going to have a strategic impact on our ability to meet those requirements," he said.

Some anti-terror proposals got little or nothing. For example, an $8 million plan to upgrade bomb squads across the region was scrapped. And no funds were provided to Prince George's County for a new radio system that would have put its first responders on the same level as other jurisdictions'.

"We have a very old, outdated radio system that doesn't allow us to talk to our other regional partners," said Vernon Herron, the county's homeland security director.

Local officials had expected to trim or eliminate some of their anti-terrorism proposals, because the D.C. region had requested $190 million from the homeland security program -- more than twice what it received in 2005. Meanwhile, Congress had cut funding for the urban grant program by 15 percent.

Officials were stunned, however, by the size of the reduction when the grants were announced by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. They anticipated receiving about $100 million, instead of the $46 million they received. New York officials protested similar cuts.

Still, area authorities emphasized that some of the lost funding could be recouped through other federal grants. And some departments are still spending money from last year's grant.

The $4 million grant to Metro will be used to help the transit authority relocate its operations control center, what officials called its "Number one vulnerability," from the basement of its downtown headquarters to agency property in Prince George's. The center is the central communications hub for the buses, trains and Metro Transit Police.

"Metro is grateful to the region's state homeland security advisers and county chief administrative officers for their strong support for this critical project, especially given the tight budget constraints this year," said Metro's interim general manger, Dan Tangherlini.

Metro estimates that it will be two years before the $29 million center is operational. Nearly half of the cost has been budgeted from Metro funds and federal grants. Factoring in yesterday's grant announcement, Metro will need $11 million more to finish the work, which officials hope will come from federal transit grants.

As part of the spending blueprint released yesterday, the District, Virginia and Maryland will each receive $2.3 million for projects in the capital region. And $6.3 million will go toward maintaining existing anti-terror projects.

Staff writer Lena H. Sun contributed to this report.