In suburbs, homeland security spending is all over the map

By Sara Burnett and Kara Spak
Daily Herald Staff Writers
September 12, 2005
Second of two parts

MARK BLACK/DAILY HERALD

Scott Hildebrandt of the Palatine Rural Fire Protection District models some of the bunker gear purchased with a grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

A review of homeland security spending in Chicago and the suburbs shows some places have spent millions - amassing everything from exercise equipment to gas masks to duct tape - while others have done little to nothing to prepare for a terrorist attack or disaster.

Combined, the 127 communities, fire districts and counties surveyed reported spending more than $150 million since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Much of that money bought items such as protective gear for police and firefighters and radios so authorities statewide can talk to each other.

But it also bought a $4,598 treadmill, nearly $13,000 worth of T-shirts, jackets and lanyards and more than $36,000 in security cameras to deter vandalism of county employees' cars, the Daily Herald found.

Illinois has been lauded by some experts because it doled out its anti-terror money statewide with an eye toward preparing for natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina as well as terrorism. But how the money was spent and whether it will make us safer is prompting questions from some others.

"T-shirts and jackets are not really going to stop a terrorist," said Thomas Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste, an advocacy group that's an offshoot of a commission formed by President Reagan.

Schatz said his members believe Congress and federal officials have given states too much spending leeway. The result, he said, "is a lot like impulse shopping."

Frank Cilluffo, director of the Homeland Security Policy Institute at George Washington University and a former special assistant for homeland security to President Bush, agreed there are some kinks to work out.

As massive government programs go, homeland security still is in its infancy, he noted, and lawmakers still are trying to find a balance between letting state officials make decisions, and keeping some oversight.

"Clearly we want to make sure we're getting counter-terrorism bang for counter-terrorism buck," Cilluffo said. "But it is a relatively new process, and when you're talking about billions and billions of dollars, I'd say the vast majority is being spent wisely."

The bulk of the money for the six-county area - more than $100 million - went to Chicago, Metra and the Chicago Transit Authority, but officials at all three declined to detail how they have spent their cash.

The spending per town or agency was sporadic in the suburbs which are near to O'Hare International Airport and are home to some of the state's top corporations as well as to one of its top tourist attractions, Woodfield Shopping Center.

Of the 127 places surveyed, 27 - including Antioch, South Elgin and Barrington - reported spending or receiving nothing.

Officials in roughly two dozen places said they spent more than $100,000 in either federal, state or local dollars. Among them was Lincolnshire, a Lake County town of less than 7,000 known for its large wooded lots and Marriott resort. Its officials spent more than $300,000 - much of it village funds - to improve security around its water supply.

Having millions in grant money floating around leaves open the possibility of abuse, local officials admit. Across the country, lawmakers and local officials have been criticized for using homeland security money for everything from Segway scooters (Santa Clara, Calif.) to leather jackets (Washington, D.C.).

But area officials also insist Illinois is on the up and up, and that even purchases that raise eyebrows - a $2,400 digital computer monitor for the city of West Chicago, for example - make sense when explained.

"Have some people spent the money inappropriately? Probably," said Lake County Undersheriff Gary Stryker, who serves as president of the Illinois Law Enforcement Alarm System, a statewide group of police and sheriff's officers.

"Do I know any?" Stryker added. "I don't think so."

How the cash flows

Then-Gov. George Ryan created Illinois' terrorism task force in 1999, largely in response to the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City four years earlier.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, the task force was tagged with distributing Illinois' share of federal homeland security funds approved by Congress.

MARK BLACK/DAILY HERALD

Lake County Undersheriff Gary Stryker, also head of the Illinois Law Enforcement Alarm System, sits on the state's homeland security task force. He advocates spreading federal money throughout Illinois instead of concentrating it in the Chicago area.

Some of the cash stayed at the state level, where it helped build a new intelligence center, improve communication between hospitals and public health employees and equip regional teams to deal with weapons of mass destruction or hazardous materials.

But the majority of the cash also went to local communities, counties and fire districts. It was done on a regional basis, an approach state anti-terrorism officials say is most cost-efficient. Every town may not have every piece of equipment or expertise, but someplace nearby does, they say.

"We're not writing checks to every municipality," said William Ferguson, Will County director of emergency management. "We're building a response in each area of the state."

It's a method that, if done right, can provide protection while saving taxpayer dollars, Cilluffo said.

"I respect that approach," Cilluffo added. "Now, the devil is in the details."

The largest amount of money - more than $20.4 million - arrived in local communities in the form of gas masks. Called "escape masks" because they will not withstand exposure to toxic chemicals for any extended time period, they were distributed to every police officer and firefighter in the state who requested one along with a filter and carrying case. Public health and public works employees also received masks, bringing the total number distributed to roughly 70,000. Just how long the masks will protect those people, however, depends on which chemicals are in the air, and their concentration levels.

Both the statewide police and sheriff coalition and the Mutual Aid Box Alarm System, a coalition of fire departments, also awarded cash grants to communities through a competitive application process.

That money so far has been designated largely for training, "target hardening" - or improving security at specific sites - and buying new radios so police and firefighters statewide can communicate.

A $50,000 statewide police grant, for example, helped buy a portable video surveillance system in Buffalo Grove. Police use the system to remotely monitor potential targets, ranging from gas or water lines to the village's many synagogues. Mount Prospect received about $151,000 from the fire coalition to equip a hazardous materials team with air sampling equipment and chemical detectors that will alert firefighters if air is toxic.

Several communities, meantime, didn't wait for grants.

Within a month of the Sept. 11 attacks, Buffalo Grove officials spent $250 at Sam's Club buying bulk food items for use in case of emergency. Arlington Heights spent more than $30,000 on 104 chemical-resistant suits, 110 gas masks, 120 pairs of gloves and six radiation-detecting monitors.

Naperville officials have spent nearly $303,000 total on homeland security so far.

Pete Smith, a retired police officer and the city's emergency preparedness manager, said the city has redesigned and furnished its emergency operations center, equipped it with new computers and bought satellite phone service.

Naperville spent its own tax dollars precisely because the state's regional approach didn't provide a bundle of cash to any one city, Smith said. It's an approach he believes makes people statewide safer, he said.

"Illinois is really ahead of the game," Smith added. "They didn't dole out federal money in a lot of little grants so everybody could get a shiny gadget that would sit in the closet."

Washing up

In addition to the dollars filtered through the terrorism task force, several other grants have been given directly to urban centers and agencies.

Chicago, Cook County, Metra and the Chicago Transit Authority have been the biggest winners of those funds, receiving about $133.3 million over the past three years from the Urban Area Security Initiative grant reserved for large cities and transit agencies.

Chicago officials, who have received some $65.8 million, refused to disclose how they spent their money, saying only that some of it was used to build a new emergency call center and to provide police officers with "protective gear."

Cook County reported spending $12.85 million on a communication system that will allow authorities in 34 municipalities to talk to one another in an emergency.

The county also has requested but has not yet received 17 trucks or SUVs, a bomb-disposal robot, protective suits for its bomb squad and a 53-foot lab and command center trailer for its public health department. The items' cost is not yet known.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency also gave out funds to the Palatine Rural Fire Protection District totaling roughly $160,000.

The department used the money - which it had to match with a 10 percent contribution of its own - to buy new self-contained breathing apparatus for firefighters, a $4,648 commercial washing machine to clean firefighter gear and the $4,598 treadmill.

Chief Hank Clemmensen defended the purchases, noting they fall under the category of "fire safety" in the federal list of allowable items.

The thinking, Clemmensen added, is that firefighters must be in good condition. Fire district policy requires them to work out for 1¨ hours every day they work, which is usually every three days.

"The next thing we're trying to purchase is a (stationary) bicycle," Clemmensen said.

The washing machine, he added, removes smoke and cancer-causing chemicals from firefighters' gear. Before the department bought it, they had to take their gear to another department to clean it.

About 70 Illinois communities also have received cash to train residents how to help neighbors in an emergency.

The communities have used the federal Citizen Corps funds to advertise classes, pay instructors and give participants items like flashlights, bandages and portable shovels.

They also bought a few perks. Palatine, for example, spent about $581 on lanyards imprinted with "Palatine Citizen Corps." DuPage County spent $131.50 on coffee and rolls to serve at meetings, while Libertyville has provided roughly 75 members each with a T-shirt, windbreaker and hat, at a total cost of $1,879. That's just a portion of the roughly $13,000 total suburban communities spent on clothes.

The apparel is necessary so people can spot team members should a disaster occur, said Robert Kleinheinz, Libertyville assistant fire chief and director of fire prevention. Members also are expected to wear the gear to all training exercises and volunteer events such as fire prevention week.

"You have to have some way to identify them," he added.

Cilluffo also sees value in such items, provided the cost isn't exceeding necessary equipment or actual training.

"Part of (citizen corps) is trying to galvanize a community," he said. "A T-shirt or a hat makes people feel like they are part of something."

Little oversight

Lanyards, treadmills, and washing machines may not sound to some people like logical homeland security purchases. Neither might Kane County's $36,951 worth of security cameras, which the county board approved after employees at the clerk's office had their cars vandalized.

But each meets the description of allowable purchases determined by the federal Department of Homeland Security. In Kane County's case, for example, the clerk's office doubles as a pharmaceutical distribution point under the local bioterrorism response plan - making it eligible.

And there, Schatz said, lies part of the problem.

"Do we blame the local government? They're spending the money, and in some cases very creatively," he added. "But there isn't anyone telling them they can't."

Any purchase can be somewhat of a Catch-22, noted Wayne Police Chief Dan Callahan, a former investigator for the Illinois attorney general's office who sat in on some of the first meetings of the Illinois Terrorism Task Force.

"If you were a resident of a community and you found out money was available and your police chief or fire chief didn't try to get any of it, you wouldn't be very happy either," he said.

Yet Callahan admitted that, like many towns, Wayne has taken a pass on big-ticket, anti-terror purchases. More basic, day-to-day needs were a higher priority than technology or equipment the equestrian-friendly village of about 2,300 might never use, he said. Instead, he relies on better-equipped places like DuPage and Kane counties (Wayne straddles the two) to help.

"We don't need to have … an emergency management center," Callahan added. "I just need to know it's available if I need it."

Local officials in some places said they beefed up security well before Sept. 11, making buying items in the years since less necessary. Lake County, for instance, already had a mobile command trailer it used for incidents such as major floods. Others, like those in Volo, said they spent nothing because they rely on the local sheriff's department for policing - and homeland security.

In South Elgin, which also reported receiving and spending nothing, Village Administrator Larry Jones said it was "hard to tell" how his community compares to others in terms of homeland security because he doesn't track other towns. That's a job for his police chief, Jones said.

Some officials, however, said they wanted and needed money but couldn't get it, either because their application was denied or they didn't have the money for grants that required matching funds.

"It's really frustrating," said Victor Ramirez, director of public works for Lake Zurich, a community of roughly 19,000 people. The village spent about $30,000 of its own money to meet a post-Sept. 11 federal mandate that required towns to add security to water supplies.

"I tried to get money, and I was told we probably wouldn't see any," Ramirez added. "They were right."

Dozens of communities also were rejected for the police and fire coalitions' grants. In 2004, for example, the statewide police coalition received requests totaling $13.9 million. The group had only $4 million to distribute, leading it to deny 99 of the 177 applications.

There may not be an endless supply of money. And there may be criticism of how the dollars are being spent.

Still, local officials say, we are safer today than we were before the Sept. 11 attacks.

"Are we ready for everything? No," said Stryker, the Lake County undersheriff who also leads the police coalition. "Are we better prepared than four years ago? Yes."

• Daily Herald staff writers Christy Gutowski and John Patterson contributed.

Continue: Many towns don't know where security dollars go