WASHINGTON, Jan. 16 (UPI) -- Local government and law enforcement officials are girding for a scrap with the Bush administration over hundreds of millions of dollars for local law enforcement, just as local police are working overtime on the heels of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
In the upcoming 2003 budget, the Bush administration proposes to restructure payments of more than $1 billion that flows to local law enforcement programs. The budget will direct huge amounts of money to states instead of localities and devise new formulas for handing out the money, congressional sources and local officials said.
The fight comes as local police departments said they are stretched by new duties like protecting bridges and dams from possible terror attacks, while local budgets are deflating along with the economy.
Local officials are calling the budget plan a shell game that will result in less money for local law enforcement programs at a time when those programs need money the most.
Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for Gov. Tom Ridge's Office of Homeland Security, said the White House's 2003 budget would include a net increase in homeland security funds for local law enforcement, fire departments and emergency management services. Johndroe would not comment on budget specifics.
"There will be an increase in funding going to states and local governments going toward homeland security," Johndroe said.
But after a series of meetings with Ridge and top White House and Office of Management and Budget Officials, local officials said on condition of anonymity they were convinced that the reorganization of money in the Bush budget would almost certainly translate into less money for key law enforcement programs.
"Ridge's people said the administration is looking at all programs and re-evaluating them to see if they are delivering what they are supposed to deliver, and redirecting some of the money," one local official said after a meeting this week. "In the name of streamlining, they are going to reduce funding."
Bush's budget will reorganize funding for the Community Oriented Policing Program, a Clinton-era plan dubbed COPS which was designed to put 100,000 more police officers on community streets. That program, which funnels $1 billion per year to local police departments, has resulted in the hiring of 73,000 police officers, according to the Senate Judiciary Committee. It has also become extremely popular among police chiefs and mayors.
Tinkering with or eliminating that money has angered some lawmakers on Capitol Hill who said local police should receive more assistance since Sept. 11.
"We have heard rumblings that the COPS program will be severely cut," said Margaret Aitken, spokeswoman for Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del. "We are immensely concerned that not only is this ill-conceived, but it is poorly timed."
Any changes proposed by the White House would be included in the Bush administration's budget due for delivery to Congress next month. But Congress must then decide how to implement that budget. Biden has already vowed to restore the cuts and has introduced legislation designed to strengthen the program further.
"Senator Biden will do whatever is necessary legislatively to restore the program," Aitken said.
Another possible bone of contention is local law enforcement block grants: direct money to local law enforcement to the tune of more than $500 million per year. Bush's budget last year already cut funding by more than $100 million. Local officials said Bush will seek to send that money to states and that even less would make it to local law enforcement agencies in the end.
"The governors will decide now how they want to spend that," the local official said.
