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Emergency Responders: Drastically Underfunded, Dangerously Unprepared
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These are the central findings of the Council-sponsored Independent Task Force on Emergency Responders, a blue-ribbon panel of Nobel laureates, U.S. military leaders, former high-level government officials, and other senior experts, led by former Senator Warren B. Rudman and advised by former White House terrorism and cyber-security chief Richard A. Clarke. This report marks the first time that data from emergency responder communities has been brought together to estimate national needs.
The Task Force met with emergency responder organizations across the country and asked them what additional programs they truly need— not a wish list— to establish a minimum effective response to a catastrophic terrorist attack. These presently unbudgeted needs total $98.4 billion, according to the emergency responder community and budget experts (See attached budget chart.)
Currently the federal budget to fund emergency responders is $27 billion for five years beginning in 2004. Because record keeping and categorization of state and local spending varies greatly across states and localities, the experts could not estimate a single total five-year expenditure by state and local governments. Their best judgment is that state and local spending over the same period could be as low as $26 billion and as high as $76 billion. Therefore, total estimated spending for emergency responders by federal, state and local governments combined would be between $53 and $103 billion for the five years beginning in FY04.
Because the $98.4 billion unmet needs budget covers areas not adequately addressed at current funding levels, the total necessary overall expenditure for emergency responders would be $151.4 billion over five years if we are currently spending $53 billion, and $201.4 billion if we are currently spending $103 billion. Estimated combined federal state, and local expenditures therefore would need to be as much as tripled over the next five years to address this unmet need. Covering this funding shortfall using federal funds alone would require a five-fold increase from the current level of $5.4 billion per year to an annual federal expenditure of $25.1 billion.
“While we have put forth the best estimates so far on emergency responder needs, the nation must urgently develop a better framework and procedures to generate guidelines on national preparedness,” said Rudman, who served as Task Force chair. “And the government cannot wait to increase desperately needed funding to emergency responders until it has these standards in place,” he said.
The Task Force credits the Bush administration, Congress, governors and mayors for taking important steps since 9/11 to respond to the risk of catastrophic terrorism, and does not seek to apportion blame about what has not been done or not done quickly enough. The report is aimed, rather, at closing the gap between current levels of emergency preparedness and minimum essential preparedness levels across the United States.
“This report is an important preliminary step in a process of developing national standards and determining national needs for emergency responders,” said Council President Leslie H. Gelb, “but the report also highlights the need for much more work to be done in this area.”
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