This time of year, first responders across the country are gearing up to access federal and state funding to upgrade gear, enhance technology, improve communications, and recruit and train personnel.

There are a number of good sources of funding that are either available now or will become available within a few weeks. However, the most successful efforts to raise money often have less to do with an agency’s needs and more to do with its sophistication in navigating the sometimes murky landscape of government funding.

Whether you’ve been assigned the responsibility or have taken it on voluntarily, here are some potential hazards to avoid in your journey as a grantseeker.

Delaying getting started

Historically, most homeland security grants come out in the spring and early summer, but you may find yourself at a disadvantage when writing your application if you haven’t spent the better part of the year determining your priority needs and how they fit the various funding programs to which you will apply. Your preparation should have included building and formalizing collaborative operational relationships with other organizations you plan to include in your grant-funded projects. It also should have included writing and approving the plans on which your grant applications will be based.

Read more @ hstoday.us

On February 13, President Barack Obama released his fiscal year (FY) 2013 budget request. The President’s request of $59 billion for the Department of Homeland Security represents a 1.5 percent decrease in total budget authority from FY 2012 enacted levels.

FY 2013 will take the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) into its tenth year of existence. As the 10-year anniversary of DHS approaches, the President’s FY 2013 budget provides an apt opportunity to assess where the department now stands in terms of the development of key capabilities and the advancement of the nation’s homeland security enterprise.

Read more @ The Cutting Edge

On March 20 I testified before the House Homeland Security Committee on FEMA’s proposal to consolidate the current homeland security grant programs into a new National Preparedness Grant Program. My basic message to the Committee was that mayors and other local officials across the nation have serious concerns with this proposal.

Still under development, this proposed program would be a mix of formula grants to the states intended to sustain current activities and competitive grants to states and regions for specific policy areas, including critical infrastructure, counterterrorism, and transportation. There would be no more separate Urban Areas Security Initiative, transit or port security programs, or Operation Stonegarden along our land borders – all programs which provide funding to areas and facilities considered to be at greatest risk. There would no required pass-through of funding to localities and no requirement that one-fourth of the funds be dedicated to law enforcement terrorism prevention.

Read more @ thehill.com

The consolidated grants program proposed to take effect at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in fiscal year (FY) 2013 met with criticism from lawmakers, mayors and congressional investigators Tuesday.

Democrats particularly questioned the proposed consolidation of 16 individual grant programs into the National Preparedness Grant Program (NPGP), as outlined in the FY 2013 DHS budget request, during a hearing of the House Homeland Security emergency preparedness subcommittee. Reps. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), ranking member of the full committee, and Laura Richardson (D-Calif.), ranking member of the subcommittee, questioned how the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) would maintain funding streams to critical capabilities in specific large urban areas as well as dedicated funding to critical infrastructure.

Thompson argued it made little sense to call upon port and transit officials to compete for the same pool of grant money, while Richardson called for the Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI), port grants, transit grants and the State Homeland Security Grant Program to remain separate funds.

Their arguments were buoyed by Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, also a Democrat, who testified on behalf of the US Conference of Mayors. Nutter objected to the idea of the NPGP grants, as they would not guarantee any funding to large urban areas like Philadelphia.

Read more @ hstoday.us