State’s Homeland Security commission only advisory

Jace Radke

Thursday, Nov. 6, 2003 | 11:48 a.m.

Although the Nevada Homeland Security Commission had previously been hailed as the group that would decide how homeland security money would be divvied up throughout the state, the commission, during its first meeting Wednesday, decided it will serve only in an advisory role.

"We're an advisory agency charged with making recommendations to the governor and the Legislature on how to prevent, protect against and, if necessary, manage the consequences of terrorist acts," commission Chairman and State Homeland Security Adviser Jerry Bussell said.

Deputy Attorney General Glade Myler said the laws passed earlier this year that created the commission don't specify its powers. That gap in the law also allowed the majority of the hotels in the state to fail to submit their emergency management plans to state and local authorities by the Oct. 31 deadline.

"A regulatory agency could pass regulations so that casinos comply, but an advisory board can't tell casinos what to do," Myler told the commission, which includes Sheriff Bill Young, Henderson Police Chief Michael Mayberry and former Sheriff Jerry Keller among other members.

Assemblyman William Horne, D-Las Vegas, and Sen. Dennis Nolan, R-Las Vegas, who are nonvoting members of the commission and helped to write the legislation that created the group, said that the Legislature's intent was that the commission be advisory, not regulatory.

The group will still have a strong voice in how federal anti-terrorism funds are distributed in the state, Frank Siracusa, director of the state Division of Emergency Planning, said.

"We're asking for guidelines from the commission on how this money should be distributed," Siracusa said. "'The division doesn't want to be the sole agency allocating dollars. We want input from another group."

Before the commission was created, a steering committee of 12 people was providing that advice. Eleven of them were from Northern Nevada, and they used a need-based system for distributing funds, Richard Mirgon, former chairman of the committee and 911 communications director for Douglas County, said.

"We tried to look at the intent of the federal government in allocating these funds, and that wasn't based on population, but need," Mirgon said. "It's not based on a fair share or population, but on protecting lives where there is a need."

Keller and Young both suggested that funding should be allocated based on population, both permanent and visiting -- a formula that would benefit Southern Nevada.

"This money we are getting from the federal government is finite and it's for specific purposes, not to fix problems we may have made in the past in state government," Young said. "Every citizen is worth the same whether you live in Summerlin or Carlin, Nev., and using population means every citizen gets an equitable return on their tax dollars."

Mirgon said that he was concerned that going strictly by population would result in some counties having more money than they could spend.

"We had people asking for computers and plasma screen televisions to put on their walls, but by going by need we were able to make sure those things weren't funded," Mirgon said.

Young countered that the need-based system is impractical, and that population is the fairer system.

"We can argue all day on needs," Young said. "What are we going to do on the commission, have someone stand up and make a presentation and if it sounds good we allocate the funds?

"If that's the case I could probably make a good argument that all the money or at least a big portion should go to Clark County."

At stake is $26.5 million in federal anti-terrorism funds awarded to Nevada on Monday -- $5.3 million for state administration and agencies and $21.2 million to be distributed to local agencies.

If a population were used to disburse the $21.2 million, Clark County, which has 70 percent of the state's population, would receive $14.9 million. Since fiscal year 1999, Clark County has received about $11.4 million of the $20.3 million the state has allocated to local agencies.

Funding guidelines will be discussed at the next meeting of the commission scheduled for Jan. 8.