NEW YORK STATE HOMELAND Security Director James McMahon is relentless in his quest to safeguard every New York community. The spirit of cooperation the state has demonstrated since Sept. 11 is improving the security of its residents, but the work isn’t done yet, he says.

The New York Office of Homeland Security, which was established one month after the Sept. 11 attacks, is in charge of developing and carrying out a statewide strategy to detect, protect against and respond to terrorist threats. The effort is succeeding, McMahon says, because local, state and federal officials are communicating and working together.

McMahon is a big proponent of cooperation. His office is coordinating the effort to share the latest terror threat information among local, state and federal law enforcement agencies. Through the agency’s efforts, cities work with their counties to develop regional security strategies, so they can share resources and coordinate their responses if incidents occur.

“When this office started, the goal was to ensure that the state did everything possible to support local government in any type of catastrophic situation, whether it was natural or man-made,” McMahon says. “We’ve made great progress. From a coordination standpoint, we are doing well.”

Fighting Complacency

The London bombings last summer serve as a fresh reminder that the state—and the nation as a whole—needs to continue to push hard to protect its citizens.

Before the latest terrorist attack, many people were lulled into a false sense of security, McMahon points out. At the time of the London bombings, it had been 46 months since the Sept. 11 events and 18 months since the train bombings in Madrid, Spain.

“Months go by and complacency can set in, both in the public and the private sector, and prior to the London attacks, that was happening,” he says. “First there was Sept. 11, then Madrid on March 11 and now London. We don’t need any more. As [New York state] Governor Pataki said, we have to do everything humanly possible to never let this happen again.”

New York state’s homeland security office, which has a $17.5 million operating budget and up to 86 employees, provides training and equipment for public health agencies, along with police, fire and emergency crews to unearth and stop terrorist plots—and to respond to attacks if they occur.

The office receives nearly $300 million of homeland security funding each year from the federal government. The agency distributes the money as grants to New York’s major cities plus 57 counties, so they can pursue security improvement projects, buy equipment and get training. In addition, the agency must handle cybersecurity, as well as assess and reduce vulnerabilities in the state’s transit and telecommunication systems, and its roads, bridges and tunnels.

Working Together

McMahon, who was the superintendent of the New York State Police before joining the Office of Homeland Security in 2003, is proud of his agency’s efforts to coordinate with the state counties to bolster security.

In 2001, for example, the state created the Counter-Terrorism Network to provide law enforcement throughout the state with the latest terrorism-related alerts from the FBI and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. New York state has installed about 350 computers in police departments, sheriff’s offices and even in some patrol cars, so they can receive the latest advisories, he says.

The Counter-Terrorism Network also divides the state into 16 counterterrorism zones, or regions, bringing together police chiefs, county sheriffs and state police troop commanders from every region to discuss and implement homeland security strategies and information technology projects, McMahon says.

While law enforcement officials work on their regional issues, the whole group meets every quarter to discuss statewide issues. “It’s a matter of making sure we’re [going] in the right direction and not duplicating any one agency’s efforts,” McMahon explains.

In 2003, the state created the Upstate New York Regional Intelligence Center (UNYRIC), through which the FBI and local and state law enforcement officials share relevant counterterrorism information and conduct investigations of suspicious activities and potential threats. They use the Counter-Terrorism Network to electronically send alerts to police and sheriff’s offices throughout the state.

New York, which two years ago more than doubled the number of state troopers guarding the state’s northern border to 220, also shares the latest terrorist information with homeland security offices in the Canadian provinces of Quebec, Ontario and New Brunswick. In 2004, New York added Vermont to the UNYRIC, so the two states could share counterterrorism information with each other.

Distributing Grants

Cities and counties in New York are funding their homeland security projects through a combination of grants they receive from the state’s homeland security office and from federal agencies. For the 2005-2006 fiscal year, the state of New York received a total of $298.3 million in homeland security funding from the federal government. The state, in turn, granted the money to local jurisdictions, with New York City receiving more than $203 million in grants.

The grants are split into six programs. The $221 million Urban Area Security Initiative is given to the largest urban areas that have the most critical infrastructure. New York and Buffalo receive the bulk of that grant. The $49.4 million State Homeland Security Program and the $17.9 million Law Enforcement Terrorism Prevention Program are aimed at purchasing equipment and providing training for first responders.

The remaining three grants, totaling about $10 million, are for emergency management planning, emergency response systems for public health crises, and training and equipment for Citizen Corps volunteers.

The state is allowed to keep 20 percent of the money it receives from the federal government, but the state puts the money back into local communities, McMahon says. For example, the federal government’s grant specifically for law enforcement dropped from $23.4 million in 2004 to $17.9 million in 2005. The state used a portion of its 20 percent allocation to increase the law-enforcement grant to ensure that every county received the same funding in 2005.

The state determines the grant amounts for each community through a “threat-based formula.” That formula considers factors including population density, state and national icons or symbols, and critical infrastructure.

Each year, New York usually finds out in November how much the federal government will give the state in homeland security funding, McMahon says. The state’s homeland security officials then hold seven or eight regional meetings with elected officials and first responders to explain the state’s homeland security strategy and to encourage them to come up with a regional or countywide plan for using the money effectively, he says.

“If a county has five police departments and five fire departments, they don’t need 10 command vehicles for homeland security,” McMahon explains. “They might decide to have two—one in the northern and one in the southern part of the county.”

To use its allotted funds, each county must come up with grant proposals. The state agency reviews each application, makes sure the proposed spending is consistent with federal requirements and the state’s security strategy, and approves or disapproves it, McMahon adds.

The counties previously had to spend their own money first, then get reimbursed by the state later. To help cash-strapped counties fund security projects, the federal government now allows them to get the money first, but they must spend it within 120 days.

Increasing Cooperation

While the cooperative efforts among local, state and federal officials have resulted in improved security, McMahon says the government must do more by improving communication and information-sharing.

The Sept. 11 hijackers had used bank ATMs and rented cars, and they had even been stopped by the police. Some had fake IDs. If all law enforcement and government agencies had been given access to one another’s data, a perceptive police officer or government employee who was aware of the information might have noticed something suspicious about the hijackers, he says.

The need for cooperation also extends to the average citizen, McMahon notes, so the state has developed a 24-hour hotline for residents to report suspicious activity. “Prevention is not just [a job for] law enforcement,” he points out. “There’s a component in this for everybody.”

In the coming year, McMahon hopes to hold regional exercises, so local and state agencies can test their responses to potential attacks. His goals include updating the state’s bioterrorism equipment and improving its counterterrorism intelligence capabilities.

“Prevention is the top priority,” McMahon stresses.