WASHINGTON, Oct. 31 (UPI) -- The Department of Homeland Security has a new head for the grants office that doles out its federal funding for first responders.
Corey Gruber, currently the executive director of the national preparedness taskforce, began as acting director of the Office of Grants and Training Tuesday, department Spokesman Russ Knocke told United Press International.
The grants office -- which was moved from the Department of Justice when homeland security was established in 2003 -- is responsible for distributing billions of dollars in federal grant money to state and local law enforcement and other first responders.
It has often been a lightening rod for lawmakers and state and local officials unhappy with the allocations they have received.
Gruber, who has worked in the office since it was based in the Justice Department, will take over from Tracy Henke, who announced earlier this month that she was stepping down. Henke, who also had been with the office since it was at justice, will go to work for the Ashcroft Group, the lobbying shop run by her old boss, former Attorney General John Ashcroft.
The post is confirmable, and any nominee to fill it permanently would have to through Senate hearings. Henke was never confirmed and her recess appointment would have expired at the end of this Congress, later in the year.
