Limits on use of federal aid crimp L.A. security efforts.

Local officials heralded Tom Ridge's drop-in announcement last month that the region would receive as much as $65 million in homeland security funds this fiscal year. It is as much as L.A. has seen in the last three years combined.

They also say it's nowhere near enough.

"If you compared us with the rest of the nation, we probably should have gotten about four times that amount, based on our critical infrastructure and the documented threats against Los Angeles," said Cmdr. Mark Leap, assistant commanding officer of the Los Angeles Police Department's counter-terrorism bureau.

While the region, referred to as the Los Angeles Urban Area, will receive up to $61.3 million from the federal government in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, funds cannot be allocated to what Leap said was the most pressing need--manpower.

Still, the money can be spent on badly needed communications and intelligence sharing equipment, the sort of apparatus that allows first responders from disparate organizations to communicate during an emergency. The lack of that equipment hindered New York police and fire personnel from talking to each other soon after planes crashed into the World Trade Center's twin towers.

"This new money is very, very needed," said Terry Manning, the assistant chief heading the special operations unit of the Los Angeles Fire Department. "We know that gaps still exist in interoperability communications and in intelligence sharing. All the cities and all different agencies in the county must have access to accurate and timely information."

While happy to have any financial help from the federal government, local law enforcement officials still feel the most pressing need is adding personnel.

The city of Los Angeles has channeled nearly $200 million from its coffers since the 2001 terrorist attacks for what has been broadly defined as homeland security. Most of that has been allocated to overtime police patrols around Los Angeles International Airport and the Port of Los Angeles, as well as first responder training and new equipment.

The latest grant, which falls under the Department of Homeland Security's Urban Area Security Initiative, prohibits funding for personnel or other law enforcement programs that do not deal solely with anti-terrorism and first response.

"The federal government does not want to get into the business of hiring police officers, because at some point these grants are going to diminish or go away," Leap said. "Then who is going to be paying for the salaries of these police officers?"

The initiative was designed to aid big cities whose needs were not met under the State Homeland Security Grant Program, which has been criticized for perceived inequities in the way it allocated funding. For instance, California is slated to receive $317.1 million, or $9.03 per capita, during fiscal year 2005-06. Wyoming's $18.8 million allocation in the same period comes to $37.60 per capita, according to a Congressional Research Service Report.

After lobbying

Prior to the most recent grant that outgoing Homeland Security secretary Ridge announced on a stop here in late December, L.A. had received $59.3 million in three funding rounds dating back to fiscal 2002-03.

The increase for the current fiscal year follows intense lobbying by a number of big-city mayors, including L.A. Mayor James Hahn, to get a larger portion of the $3.5 billion allocated for domestic anti-terrorism efforts.

"The mayor has been extremely vocal about the fact that cities with higher risk should. receive greater funding," said Elizabeth Kaltman, a spokeswoman for Hahn. "We know Al Qaeda has targeted (LAX) before. We know they would like to finish the job they started. They did it with the World Trade Center."

New York got the biggest boost in urban funding--$208 million, up from only $47 million in the 2004 fiscal year.

"A federal funding formula that distributes money to states with few targets shortchanges Los Angeles," said Lisa Hansen, deputy chief of staff to City Councilman Jack Weiss, who sits on the public safety committee. "As the nation's second largest city, Los Angeles needs to be a top priority."

A regional Terrorist Early Warning Group, comprised of representatives from local and county police, fire and health agencies as well as the FBI, is currently devising a priority list for the 2005 expenditures. Local officials will be notified in June whether their requests have been approved for funding.

Leap said the process could shave as much as six months off earlier ordering procedures.

Until this year, the city's homeland security officials had to appear before the L.A. City Council to request money for equipment. If funding was approved, a request for proposals was issued for each item costing $100,000 or more. After the lowest bidder was selected and a contract negotiated, the deal needed approval from the City Attorney's Office before an order was made.

Once the equipment was received, the manufacturer would be paid and only then could the city submit a request to the Homeland Security department for reimbursement.

Among the likely priorities will be upgrading police and fire communications equipment so the departments are operating on a single frequency. L.A. first responders still have to wait 10 minutes upon arrival at a scene before they can "cross-patch" frequencies to communicate with each other.

Purchasing intelligence sharing computers and software is also high on the priority list.

Earlier this year, the group completed an updated threat and vulnerability assessment of the L.A. Urban Area, comprised of the city and county of Los Angeles, Alhambra, Beverly Hills, Burbank, Commerce, Culver City, El Segundo, Glendale, Hawthorne, Inglewood, Monterey Park, Pasadena, San Fernando, Santa Monica, Torrance, Vernon and West Hollywood.