Citing Congress' inability to finish its work on the 2003 appropriations bills, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has frozen more than $1.5 billion in law enforcement funding earmarked for cities and counties. The money was tucked into the stop gap measure that Congress passed in its lame duck session following the November elections. However, Assistant Attorney General Deborah Daniels told local leaders DOJ has no other option but to hold the funds until Congress and President Bush resolve the impasse over 11 remaining spending bills. “At this time, we can only speculate on the availability of resources for the balance of the fiscal year,” Daniels said in a Dec. 2 statement.
Local leaders say the decision is ill timed. It comes only weeks after Congress failed to fund the $3.5 billion first responder initiative and as cities and counties are struggling to absorb the new costs associated with homeland defense. According to the U.S. Conference of Mayors, cities alone have spent more than $2.6 billion on “additional security costs” since the 2001 terrorist attacks.
“The Justice Department decision is very short sighted,” says Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors. “It threatens public safety, and it leaves city budgets, already pinched by recession and homeland security spending, in even worse shape.”
DOJ's decision to withhold the $1.5 billion is just one of many federal decisions that will have an immediate impact on local government finance. For example, the Senate agreed last year to keep spending for non-Pentagon programs at $395 billion; however, President Bush, emboldened by the strong Republican showing in the midterm elections, wants to reduce that number by $10 billion. As a result, when the first session of the 108th Congress opens this month, local leaders are likely to find that money available for homeland security, education and healthcare is being reduced dramatically.
They are facing similar funding shortages at state levels. Thirty-seven states cut their budgets by $12.8 billion in fiscal year 2002, according to a November report by the National Association of State Budget Officers and the National Governors Association. “[The cuts are] coming at us from all sides,” says Cameron Whitman, director of policy and federal relations for the National League of Cities.
Unless the federal government steps up its financial assistance to cities and counties, local leaders are going to have to make hard decisions about raising property taxes or cutting spending, Manchester (N.H.) Mayor Robert Baines says. “If we don't get help from the federal government then there will be layoffs of police [and] fire personnel, and we will see cuts in education and healthcare,” he notes. “The states are not meeting their responsibilities, and the federal government seems to be walking away.”
Not so, according to Molly Rowley, a spokeswoman for Senate Minority Leader Thomas Daschle (D-S.D.). “You will see furious debates, and the Democrats are going to fight hard for cities, counties and states to have the money for schools, police officers and terrorism protections,” she predicts.
In the meantime, local governments will continue forming partnerships with other jurisdictions to help meet the growing demand for new and traditional services. “[The War on Terror presents] a different set of challenges for us,” says Harris County (Texas) Judge Robert Eckels. “I think you are going to have a lot more cooperative arrangements with other jurisdictions. We are going to have to be more efficient.”
The author is Washington correspondent for American City & County.
