By Bill Scanlon
Rocky Mountain News
Copyright 2008 Denver Publishing Company
DENVER — Gov. Bill Ritter responded to a blistering report Thursday on Colorado’s terrorism readiness by saying that improvements have been made, more are on their way and the state will be ready for any chemical or biological attack.
The Office of Homeland Security’s inspector general slammed Colorado for not complying with key requirements for how it used millions of dollars in federal grants to make residents safer.
The federal audit reviewed $26.9 million in federal grants spent by Colorado’s homeland security program and found $7.8 million in questionable expenditures - a rate of 29 percent.
Colorado could be required to repay that money unless state officials can show that the spending was justified. In all, Colorado received $156.3 million between 2003 and 2006 to boost security.
‘Some grave errors’
U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter, D-Colo., said the audit shows that Colorado’s approach to homeland security from 2003 to 2006 was “sloppy” and highlights “some grave errors.”
But the general in charge of the state’s efforts said the rules on how to spend the federal dollars were “squishy” back in 2003-05, and that there is no need for the public to be concerned.
According to the inspector general’s audit, Colorado’s internal controls for ensuring readiness were ineffective. The auditors attributed many of the management problems to a lack of statewide control and high turnover in senior positions.
The report did say that Colorado has improved, citing its hiring of executives to coordinate strategy and technicians to make it work, as well as embarking on a tough program review.
Major Gen. Mason Whitney, appointed by Ritter in August to oversee the state’s terrorism preparedness, said Homeland Security officials recently told him, “ ‘You guys are headed in the right direction. That’s what we wanted to make sure of.’ They told me they don’t want us to be repeating our past mistakes.”
Whitney said a new risk analysis will help determine where best to spend training dollars, dependent on which sites are most vulnerable to attack.
Responding to concerns
The state’s own audit in 2005 prompted the feds’ follow-up audit, according to Whitney.
Colorado has had problems in the past with how it has spent dollars intended to bolster security. A 2005 federal audit criticized how Colorado kept track of its spending of $130 million.
And in 2006, the state was told it would have to repay $1.5 million given to the South Metro Fire District to house an emergency operations center.
Ritter said he began reviewing “the well-documented deficiencies” in how the state is spending the federal dollars even before he took office last January.
“Since then, we’ve appointed new leadership, set a new vision and implemented new processes. I’m confident in the progress we are making,” he said.
Whitney said that in 2003, local agencies would buy fire trucks, decontamination tents and self-contained breathing apparatuses that could be used for everyday emergencies as well as for terrorist threats.
Five years later, with the standards toughened, federal auditors said the state itself should have paid for equipment and training for day-to-day incidents and natural disasters. The federal money, they said, is to pay for items directly related to national security.
Whitney acknowledged that the state’s homeland security organization has suffered from rapid turnover of senior staff. That happened in part, he said, because former Gov. Bill Owens appointed people who began looking for other jobs toward the end of his tenure, and then had to appoint others, many of whom left when the governorship fell into Democratic hands in early 2007.
Whitney said he will stay as long as the governor wants him to, and he praised his chief deputy, Joanne Hill, former state auditor and now the state’s homeland security grant coordinator.
U.S. Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo., noted that he had asked Owens in 2005 to hold a summit on homeland security and emergency response, but that the governor didn’t agree to it.
U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., said the audit confirms the findings of a 2005 survey his office sent to first-responders, who replied that they “felt largely unprepared for a major terrorist incident and frustrated with the prioritization of grant funding.”
He said he would work to restore Homeland Security grant funding.
Perlmutter, congressman for Colorado’s 7th District and a member of the House Homeland Security Committee, noted, as did Whitney, that the Colorado state auditor’s office conducted its own investigation in 2005 and it was that audit that drew the attention of the federal auditors.
Ironically, Hill, who headed the office, is now in the position to make the improvements to the organization that her audit said needed fixing.