Soon after hijackers obliterated the World Trade Center towers eight years ago, Marin County received more than $100,000 in surveillance equipment to keep its water treatment system safe from a terrorist attack.
But four years after the funds were awarded, state authorities found more than $67,000 worth of the gear still boxed in its original packaging.
It had never been used.
A sampling of how local agencies have allocated homeland security grant money.
The rest of the Homeland Security money went toward an alarm system to protect remote tank and pump sites. Because of the region's hilly terrain, the system didn't even work.
The Marin County example is not an isolated one. Under the state's open-records laws, California Watch found scores of instances of wasteful spending, purchasing violations, error-prone accounting and shoddy oversight at agencies across the state during the years immediately following 9-11.
California Watch, a new unit started by the Berkeley-based nonprofit Center for Investigative Reporting, examined 160 monitoring reports written by state homeland security officials who visited cities and counties across California to inspect equipment and grant records for federal compliance.
Among the findings:
• Inspectors identified more than $15 million in questionable costs. The Lincoln Police Department in Placer County spent $47,000 on computer software designed to analyze crime reports so officials could better apply resources but, like Marin County, never used what they bought.
• Cities and agencies bought things with grant money that would not make California a safer place. One county tried to use anti- terrorism funds for a lawn mower but it was blocked at the last minute. Another county succeeded in buying a big-screen television.
• Scores of cities and agencies failed to keep adequate records on how they spent the money. In some cases, the poor record-keeping resulted in thousands of dollars worth of overpayments to local agencies. In other cases, agencies were unable to find where they stored their own equipment.
• Communities repeatedly bought large and small-ticket items without seeking competitive bids. Federal procurement rules designed to protect the taxpayer weren't used on millions of dollars in new communications systems, night-vision goggles and bomb-disposal robots.
The chaos that surrounded homeland security grant spending in California raises new questions about safeguards as Washington proceeds to directly hand the state and those same communities an estimated $465.2 million in economic stimulus funds for public safety programs as part of President Barack Obama's attempt to save the nation's beleaguered economy.
Like homeland security grants, lawmakers and the president want the recovery package to be spent as quickly as possible. Local officials and other experts worry a lack of oversight could lead to the same types of mistakes with the stimulus package that plagued anti-terrorism funding.
"The guidance we get from Sacramento is not always clear on what we're supposed to do," said Tony Richno, deputy director of the Modoc County Office of Emergency Services. "It's very difficult to comply and sometimes the rules are unreasonable."
Brendan Murphy, director of grants management for the California Emergency Management Agency, said several areas of the state have improved their handling of federal funds. He said that site inspections done by his office are resulting in fewer negative findings.
"You see communities that might have been struggling a few years ago," Murphy said. "They're not struggling anymore, or are at least doing better."
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