By Kara Spak and Sara Burnett
Daily Herald Staff Writers
September 11, 2005
First of two parts

MARK BLACK/DAILY HERALD

Gallatin County residents — including volunteer firefighter Darryl Disney, left, the Rev. Mark Stec, farmer Joe Scates, 3-year-old Trenton Raymer and mother Andrea, and county deputy David Mills — received more per person in homeland security funding than anyone in Illinois. Gallatin is a 25-square-mile area, and local officials say they know of no terrorist targets in the southern Illinois county.

Life is slow and peaceful in Gallatin County, a corner of southern Illinois bordering Kentucky and Indiana.

With only 6,400 people, Sheriff Raymond Martin said he spends most days battling a thriving methamphetamine trade. The last murder was a 2003 double homicide.

Despite the tiny population and lack of violent crime, Gallatin County gets more homeland security funding per person than any other in Illinois at $47.24. It gets more than double what Cook County gets per person at $22.41 and nearly 10 times more per resident than DuPage and McHenry counties.

A Daily Herald analysis of the $438 million in homeland security money given to Illinois since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks shows the state's terrorism task force spread funding around the state, giving only some weight to where people and likely targets are concentrated.

The analysis found hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on things like pickup trucks for state workers and a hotline to track terror threats to pets and livestock.

Illinois' anti-terror money was doled with the idea of getting a two-for-one punch from it by helping communities prepare for natural disasters as well as terrorist attacks.

But in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, tough questions are being asked across the country about how well prepared we are to handle either natural or terrorist disasters.

The analysis also found:
• DuPage, Kane, Lake and McHenry counties rank among the bottom 14 of Illinois' 102 counties when anti-terror funds granted are divvied on a per-person basis.

• Federal and some state tax dollars paid for an elaborate $19æ million State Emergency Operations Center in Springfield designed to house decision-makers in the event of a terrorist attack. The 48,000-square-foot building is slightly smaller than an average suburban elementary school.

• Bureaucratic federal rules have forced the state police to pay a temporary employment agency $1 million to hire the state police's own employees to work in the state-police run terrorism information center.

Chicago, Cook and the collar counties did receive the most homeland security money in the state. But factor population into the equation, and Cook drops to 13th in the state, while the collar counties received less than most others.

Mike Chamness, chairman of the Illinois Terrorism Task Force whose members were appointed by the governor, said terrorist targets and population figures were considered in the distribution of homeland security grants, but they weren't the only factors weighed.

MARK BLACK/DAILY HERALD

Mike Chamness, chair of the Illinois Terrorism Task Force, and Tim Patrick, right, project manager, tour Illinois' new State Emergency Operations Center, a $19 million building funded largely with homeland security grant money. It is expected to open in October.

Chamness said task force members believe all regions of the state should get homeland security funding regardless of how unlikely it is an area is a terrorist target. If state officials wanted to "play politics," Chamness said, the task force would have just split the funding evenly among the state's 102 counties.

But some outside experts said spreading the money throughout the state still is political and doesn't bolster response to natural disasters.

"They've expanded the meaning of homeland security so broadly, it really loses its meaning," said Matthew Lippman, a University of Illinois at Chicago professor of criminal justice who has researched homeland security preparedness.

Questions about how the money has been spent thus far have gone mostly unanswered because no one is tracking spending around the nation. That's starting to change.

The federal government is starting to audit how states spent their post-Sept. 11 funding infusion. Michigan and Indiana also are doing audits after spending was questioned.

Members of Congress are calling for closer examination of money doled out through the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the wake of the slow response to Hurricane Katrina victims.

"One of the things that hasn't really happened is there hasn't been a good audit trail of the money," said Michael Wermuth, director of the RAND Institute's Homeland Security research program. "You hear horror stories."

Target Chicago

Lippman believes Chicago, with its iconic skyscrapers and transit hubs like O'Hare International Airport, is one of the top five terrorist targets in the country. Only four states or territories got more total funding than Illinois. But, when the funding is divided by states' populations as some experts believe it should be assessed, Illinois drops to 42nd.

With Illinois' people and terrorist targets concentrated in and around Chicago, why then, Lippman asked, is money being given to downstate communities instead of spending resources to develop better intelligence in the Chicago area? Where are the drills to train people in and around Chicago how to respond?

"I don't see a lot of high-rise evacuation plans being implemented," Lippman said. "I don't see a lot of time spent on a comprehensive evacuation plan for the city of Chicago."

By law, 80 percent of federal homeland security money given to states must be allocated to local communities.

The Illinois Terrorism Task Force - an advisory group drawn from state agencies, the state's 10 largest cities, law enforcement groups, prosecutors, a school group, an agricultural company and the American Red Cross - spread this money throughout the state.

Chicago isn't the only city or place that could be threatened by terrorists, Chamness said.

"I certainly would endorse Chicago and Cook County getting more funding," he said. "But we're not putting all of our eggs in one basket."

The terrorism task force divided Illinois into 19 regions, offering each money, training and protective equipment.

MARK BLACK/DAILY HERALD

Coal is moved along the Ohio River near Old Shawneetown in Gallatin County, Illinois. Gallatin gets the most per person homeland security funding in the state.

Cook County ranked 13th out of 102 counties, getting $22.41 per person, or $120.5 million total in homeland security spending through 2004. (Those figures include special federal money it received because it is a major metro area, but do not include Federal Emergency Management Agency grants given to some firefighters.)

The $22.41 per person was far above the next metro Chicago county, Will, at 72nd in the state, with $9.06 allocated for each resident. Kane County residents received $6.36 per person, Lake County residents $5.62, DuPage County residents $4.79 and McHenry County residents $3.28.

Only two counties ranked lower than DuPage and McHenry counties when population was factored in: Wayne and Jasper counties in southeastern Illinois.

Sangamon County, home to Springfield, ranked fourth overall in per person funding at $39.76.

"I basically think it's politics," Lippman said of the broad distribution of anti-terror money. "The program has been completely distorted into a pork barrel program."

Weighing priorities

Gary Stryker, Lake County undersheriff and president of a police coalition called the Illinois Law Enforcement Alarm System, said focusing all the state's money on the Chicago area would be "a disaster."

If an attack wiped out the city - including its emergency responders - the rest of the state would be unprepared, he said. No one knows where terrorists might strike, he added.

But research and history do not bear out that small towns need even comparable protection to big ones.

Metropolitan areas have been the iconic targets of terrorism worldwide and securing the homeland should reflect that, said the RAND Institute's Wermuth.

"London got attacked, not the (rural) Lake District," Wermuth said. "New York City got attacked, not a rural area. If you believe a threat is greater, then at least a significant portion of your resources ought to be in that place."

The tradeoff, he said, is that metro areas must be willing to share their equipment or expertise outside their area.

Lippman, from the University of Illinois at Chicago, said population is a "crude measure" of where money should go. But, population centers are "natural targets" for terrorists.

Illinois officials chose to spread their funds out because the equipment also can be used for natural disasters, Chamness said.

"We already know we're going to have tornadoes and floods," Chamness said. "The concept of placing everything in northeastern Illinois, or in Chicago, doesn't give the two-for-one" benefit.

Lippman said the idea of spending on security has been twisted around the country.

"It's irrational, buying toys," he said, "rather then spending it in a rational fashion."

$19 million bunker

The showpiece of Illinois' homeland security efforts is the $19 million State Emergency Operations Center, set to open in October.

MARK BLACK/DAILY HERALD

The "nerve center" of Springfield’s new Illinois State Emergency Operations Center, seen under construction here, will house decision makers from key agencies in the event of a terrorist attack or natural disaster.

Two 12-by-18-foot screens flank a "nerve center" where officials will gather after a terrorist event or natural disaster.

Satellite images from the disaster will beam in from one of 13 camera-equipped mobile command units, bought for $230,000 each and positioned around the state. Cook County will have three of these vehicles, and Lake, Kendall and DuPage counties, one each.

A helicopter pad allows state leaders to be whisked to and from disasters. Windows are blast resistant. A 5,000-gallon potable water tank, a generator and dorm area with two cots for men and two for women are some of the features.

State officials jumped at grabbing a piece of the $50 million in federal money offered in September 2003 by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for such centers. They applied for $21 million and received $9.3 million, the second highest such grant in the country. Illinois taxpayers are funding a $3.1 million matching grant, Chamness said. Federal money will fund an additional $6.5 million in technology in the center.

State police temps

Inside the new emergency operations center is the State Terrorism Information Center run by Illinois State Police.

There, police terrorism analysts and FBI employees will piece together information on possible terrorism threats.

MARK BLACK/DAILY HERALD

This potable water tank provides 5,000 gallons for Illinois officials to use for drinking, cooking and washing in the event a terrorist attack or natural disaster spoils the regular water supply.

Though Illinois State Police employees will be working at the state-run center, the Department of Homeland Security doesn't allow its money to be used to pay for permanent positions, said Patti Thompson, spokeswoman for the Illinois Emergency Management Agency.

So the state agency is paying $1 million in homeland security tax dollars to Alice Campbell Temporary Agency in Springfield to place state police employees, called "Terrorism Research Specialists," in jobs at the state police-run facility.

In essence, state police employees are working at a state police facility, but are getting paid through the third-party employment agency, costing additional taxpayer dollars.

Thompson said her agency would prefer to fund the state police outright but that would require using state tax funds.

Craig Campbell, owner of Alice Campbell Temporaries Inc., declined to comment on the contract.

Critical aid?

State police working as temps in police facilities aren't the only odd job twists in Illinois' homeland security efforts.

Tax dollars are being used to train dentists and veterinarians to help protect the homeland.

Michael Colvard, director of the Disaster Emergency Medical Readiness Training Center at the University of Illinois at Chicago's College of Dentistry, said the school hopes to train every dentist and registered hygienist in Illinois to respond to mass casualties, hazardous materials and weapons of mass destruction incidents.

It has a long way to get there. Of the 1,000 people qualified to medically respond to disasters, including paramedics, firefighters and doctors, only about 20 are dentists.

The center has received $375,000 in homeland security money since it opened in 2004.

State veterinarians also are helping fight terror with a toll-free number pet and livestock owners can call if they think their animals have been poisoned to infect the food chain.

The animal terrorism hotline, at a $200,000 annual price tag, is run through the same center that operates a nearly identical American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals poison control hotline.

And some public health and state police workers assigned to homeland security issues were assigned new sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks.

The Illinois Department of Public Health purchased eight trucks with $236,912 in homeland security money last year. The Illinois State Police spent $367,000 on a dozen Chevy Tahoe SUVs. Cook County is in the process of bidding for 17 new trucks in the name of terror protection.

Back in Gallatin

The fact that $304,422 in homeland security funds has been sent to Gallatin County was a surprise to a water district official, the county board president and Sheriff Martin.

"I haven't seen a penny of it," Martin said. "I didn't know we had any."

Asked what terrorist targets might be in his county, Martin paused. The county's so small there's not even a movie theater or Wal-Mart.

MARK BLACK/DAILY HERALD

Steve Galt works full-time farming corn and soybeans and part-time directing Gallatin County’s Emergency Services. His tiny county received more per person homeland security funding than anywhere else in Illinois, though he admits it’s unlikely the county ever will be involved in a terrorist situation.

Actually, four fire departments in Gallatin got the funds and the county received new computers, portable radios and hazardous material suits.

Steve Galt, the county's part-time emergency management director, said, "It's money we could have never even dreamed of having."

Galt said he knows the equipment is meant to counter terrorism but doesn't anticipate ever using it for that.

"Our chances of using it are more in the nature of natural-type disasters," he said.

Martin, meanwhile, said he hopes homeland security money someday will end up closer to him and his two deputies, though he admits they have little to protect.

"It'd be nice for some radios because we're having radio problems," he said. "If they were having homeland security problems in the county it would be hard to get a hold of someone right now."

• Daily Herald staff writer John Patterson contributed to this story.

Continue: How hand of politics moves anti-terrorism dollars