Border congressmen, Perry disagree on security funding

PHARR — Gov. Rick Perry said he wants to refrain from quibbling with several members of the state’s congressional delegation over the distribution of Homeland Security dollars for border security.

In a back-and-forth exchange with border members of the U.S. House, Perry said he disagrees with their assertion that the state isn’t sending a large enough share of its federal funding to the border.

The five border members of Congress complained in a letter to Perry in early April that border counties received as little as 3 percent of the state’s share of annual funding from the Homeland Security Grant Program. However, Perry said Thursday that his math indicates the border’s distribution was closer to 17 percent.

But he restated his complaints from last week that Washington, D.C., is not doing enough to fight cartel-related violence.

“I don’t want to get in a fight with them about if it’s 15 percent or 17 percent,” Perry said following his appearance at Kennedy Middle School in Pharr. “I think we all agree that it’s not enough.”

The bickering began May 7 when Perry said, “Washington needs to quit fiddling while the border region of America burns,” following a campaign stop to pick up endorsements at Mission’s annual prayer luncheon.

In response, the state’s five border congressmen — U.S. Reps. Ciro Rodriguez, Silvestre Reyes, Henry Cuellar, Rubén Hinojosa and Solomon Ortiz — released their own statement this week saying that Perry’s claim “disputed some clear-cut facts about border security funding.”

The lawmakers pointed to the letter they quietly sent to his office on April 8 that argues “border communities are not receiving their fair share of homeland security funding provided to Texas.” The letter says that Texas was awarded an average of $125 million a year over the last four years from the Homeland Security Grant Program, but the border region received as little as 3 percent of those funds each year.

Perry’s office did not respond to the letter, said Rep. Rodriguez, D-San Antonio, who penned the missive.

But after Perry’s comments last week in Mission, the border congressmen said in the statement that they would ask the Government Accountability Office — a nonpartisan agency that studies government spending — to conduct an analysis detailing how much federal funding given to the state has been allocated to the border.

“We agree that more can be done, but we cannot do it alone,” the statement reads. “And we need to deal in facts, not myths.”

A clear disparity is evident in the total grant distribution. However, the total does include the Urban Areas Security Initiative, a grant targeted at the country’s largest urban areas. Along the Texas-Mexico border, only El Paso qualifies.

In the 2006 Homeland Security Grant Program, for example, the four councils of government that represent 22 counties along the border received $3.2 million in funding from the program. That’s less than 6 percent of the $57.1 million that was awarded statewide.

In 2007, those counties’ councils of government received $6.6 million — or 6.3 percent of the total state funding for the program. And in 2008, the border counties received $26.2 million — or 9.3 percent of the total state funding.

2009 data was unavailable. The Texas Division of Emergency Management did not respond this week to several requests for that distribution.

The Homeland Security Grant Program, which consists of several targeted grants, allows state or urban areas to build capabilities critical to security. The program will distribute $1.78 billion this year.

The Legislature has spent more than $215 million in state funding to secure the border because “Washington has been abject failures” at providing federal funding, Perry said Thursday in Pharr. He reiterated his request to put National Guard troops on the border to ensure security with the state’s largest trading partner.

But Rodriguez said Congress is funding security along the border.

Nine U.S. representatives — including the Rio Grande Valley delegation — have requested an emergency disbursement of at least $500 million in federal funds to fight narcotics and organized crime along the border, Rodriguez said. Border congressman have also maintained funding for 20,000 U.S. Border Patrol agents and worked to increase staff and resources at land ports of entry.

Rodriguez said he was surprised to see the “disproportional amount” that was distributed to border communities from Homeland Security funding.

“You get an average $140 million to the state of Texas for Homeland Security and there’s a great deal of talk about the border,” he said last week. “Yet the resources don’t follow the talk.”