U.S. Department of Justice, Office of State and Local Domestic Preparedness and Support, In December 1998, it was decided that the law enforcement officers in Arapahoe County needed Although this was a start, we still needed more. In 2001, Lt. Roger Hoffner, Arapahoe County Emergency Management Coordinator, Arapahoe County Sheriff's Office, applied for a grant to the Colorado Office of Emergency Management, who had the responsibility of distributing grant funds from the Department of Justice, Office of State and Local Domestic Preparedness and Support, "State Domestic Preparedness Equipment Program." The grant was a two-part process with a multi-county (Arapahoe and Douglas) Terrorist Assessment and the application, which listed the Arapahoe/Douglas, needs assessment at $731,720.00. In August of 2001, the Steering Committee preliminarily approved $352,000 for Arapahoe/Douglas Counties. The process for the final approval and award from DOJ was to be sometime in November. Because of the subsequent terrorist attack on New York, the Arapahoe County Sheriff's Office, OEM, requested that $113,209.94 for personal protection equipment (PPE) "First Responder Bags" be expedited. The Colorado Office of Emergency Management passed along our concerns to DOJ and on September 26th the request was awarded (2EM70803). The money was used to purchase 805 "First Responder Bags". Because of the previously purchased gas masks in 2000, only 326 complete bags, with gas masks needed to be purchased. The rest were completed with the previously purchased masks. The award notice for the balance of the $352,000 grant was received late May and is being approved and accepted through the County Commissioners. This will be used to enhance the regional Hazardous Material Team. Respectfully, Sheriff Patrick J. Sullivan, Jr. ACA Accredited by the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, American Correctional Association and National Commission on Correctional Health Care. These bags will benefit Arapahoe Sheriff Office, Douglas County Sheriff's Office and 11 other law enforcement agencies in the counties. The response from the law enforcement community in getting these "First responder Bags" has been extremely positive. Additionally, Arapahoe County Sheriff's Office purchased equipment to complete bags for: Coroners Office, Commissioners/Staff, Columbine Ambulance, Sheriff and Undersheriff, Colorado State Patrol (32) based in Castle Rock, and inventory to re-equip about 40 bags if used on an event. Mr. HORN. Lieutenant Wicks, Office of Safety Services, Police Division, city of Englewood. STATEMENT OF LIEUTENANT BYRON D. WICKS, OFFICE OF SAFETY SERVICES, POLICE DIVISION, CITY OF ENGLEWOOD Mr. WICKS. Yes, sir. The Department of Safety Services for the city of Englewood incorporates fire and police as well as building codes and code enforcement. So when I speak, I speak both from the fire and police perspective. My current assignment is as the investigations bureau commander. And before I get started, I want to make note that we are the benefactor of Lieutenant Hoffner's initiative and project. And we have, I believe, about 76 of those 805 bags that Lieutenant Hoffner's agency has donated to us, and we appreciate that. Right after October or in October 2001, shortly after the September tragedy, my director appointed me czar of the Englewood Office of Preparedness and Security, as he called it, and Lieutenant Hoffner's been in this business for 6 years and if he feels confused; I've been in it for about 10 months and I know I am. So my perspective is definitely one from the operator's point of view, and that's based on 27 years of law enforcement experience, 31 years as a commissioned officer in the Marine Corps in which I was always assigned to operational billets. So as Lieutenant Hoffner indicates, operations at the level that we deal with is critical. The two points that I want to bring up, and you're going to hear a lot of this, if you haven't already, is, first, the issue of interoperability. I know it's a hot topic, but if we don't have it, we are lost. And as sort of a subset to that issue of interoperability, I include communications, obviously, and that is definitely a problem, planning, and commonality in terms of response. There isn't that much difference in a typical response that agencies in a suburban area would have. It's not to say that one size is going to fit all, but with minor modifications, it would be about a 95 percent solution. But when we are on one page and Arapahoe County's on another, even if we can talk to each other, we are not going to function well enough to do the job correctly the first time. Which brings up the issue of exercises, both interagency and intra-agency exercises. And along with that, it would be nice if there was some standard, if you will, if Arapahoe County and Englewood had an exercise that maybe the State would say, “This is the way we want to go," so we have a common direction, a common focus, not just for our two agencies, but all agencies in the State of Colorado. And then the second point I want to just address very quickly, and Roger virtually said everything I was going to say: As a grant administrator, funding issues are always an issue. One, obviously, is the amount of Federal funding in terms of grants, but maybe even more important than that, and Roger addressed this, is the fact that, one, how is it going to be spent? We recognize our own strengths and we also recognize our areas of need better than anybody else does. Second of all is the form the grant comes in and the complexity that we have to deal with in terms of reporting what we've done with the moneys. Some grants, as a grant administrator, we will not accept, we will not apply for, because it's so difficult, it's so painful as an organization to account for that money, we simply won't do it we will not take any grants from the COPS program. Mr. HORN. Did you ever have money from the COPS? Mr. WICKS. Yes, we did, and we were audited, and it was incredibly painful, and it was just too difficult to prove what they were asking us to prove. Mr. HORN. Well, you also had the problem of the localities and the cities of having to go out and add some people to their law enforcement, either their fire or for police and the sheriff's office, and that would be got you out on a string there, and the Federal Government money suddenly comes off. And I don't know how much that was a factor in saying that that program happened to be my law which was merged into it, because I wanted people just like you, a Marine, when you're retired from the military, I thought it was a good thing to do that because we needed police people. This was back in 1992-93, and so I was curious about what the problem was there with COPS. I do know there was a lot of bias as to the politics of it. That isn't unusual, but a little more than one. Mr. WICKS. Well, we only spent about half our money and tried to give it back. That is impossible, to give back money on a grant. I mean, we couldn't spend it, we couldn't give it back. It was very burdensome. So right now the only grants that we will apply for are the block grants. And, quite frankly, I like the format of block grants because we get to choose the area in which we spend it, a one-page justification for the expenditures, and show them a receipt. Mr. HORN. Well, I agree with you. I was a big advocate, beating the drums, long before I got into Congress in terms of revenue sharing, and that way the localities were much more able to figure out the needs than somebody sitting in Washington. That's my approach to it. There's the revenue sharing. Mr. WICKS. And the last thing Roger brought up as well is we are one of the few police departments that uses the incident command system. Apparently Arapahoe County does. We use it because in safety services we combine with fire. Almost all fire departments use them but very few police departments. It's a great system, and it would be nice if the State agencies in the State of Colorado were like those in California where they all use the incident command system. They're all talking the same language and we all understand the responsibilities and jobs in a collective endeavor. And with that, I'll rest. Mr. HORN. That's very helpful, and we'll go in and do a few more things. And now we have Paul L. Posner, Managing Director of Federal Budget Issues, Strategic Issues, U.S. General Accounting Office. Some of you, I think, are well known by it, and that is headed by the Comptroller General of the United States, currently Dave Walker, first-rate person, who believes in management and believes in people working together and all the rest. And he's got a 15-year appointment, and nobody can fuss around with him, including the President and the Congress, which is a pretty good deal. He deserves it, and he's doing a great job. |