Senate Governmental Affairs Committee Holds Hearing on Homeland Security Challenges

DURBIN:

Madam Chair, thank you for this hearing.

I'm sorry I stepped in a few moments late, but I wanted to come. I think this is critically important. And I think we face two challenges. First, how to respond to the reality of terrorism when we know that the world is more likely to call 911 than the senator's office when something happens.

And secondly, how do we do it in a context where we are dealing with the largest federal deficit in the nation's history, and most state and local governments are facing the largest deficits they've seen in recent memory.

It's an extraordinary challenge. I'm glad you're having this hearing. I think that your goal of more flexibility in transferring these funds is something that will be important to my state and many others.

Thank you.

DURBIN:

Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and thank you for this hearing.

And I would like to ask consent that a survey that has been assembled by my staff of Illinois communities and the experience that they have had be made part of the record of this committee hearing.

COLLINS:

Without objection.

DURBIN:

It shows much of what has been said by the witnesses today: clear need, unmet by federal funds. And also some complications, which I'd like to get into in just a moment.

It strikes me that if you step back from where we are and assess, as Chief Horvath and others have, two years after September 11th, that you have to put it in a context. And the context that I see facing you as firefighters and police and other first responders, I alluded to in my opening remarks.

Unless you are an unusual community in America, you are facing a budget crunch. That probably is an annual occurrence for most of you, but made even worse by the recession, which has reduced local revenues and state revenues. And so, you're being forced to deal with deficit situations, hiring freeze, cutbacks in the context of this conversation.

It's also quite likely, from the police side, that you're aware of the fact that the president's new budget eliminates the COPS program. One of the things that brought up to me by most of these police departments in Illinois is how valuable that program has been. Direct assistance from the federal government for hiring the men and women we need on the street. And that, incidentally, in the 44 cities recently surveyed by one group, we found that as the federal investment in law enforcement has gone down, crime rates are going up again, which we certainly don't want to see.

But here you are facing state and local budget deficits, cutbacks and elimination of the federal COPS program, cutbacks in the Byrne grant program, which a lot of law enforcement agencies have used as part of President Bush's proposed budget.

Now, a new factor: the activation of the Guard and Reserve. And in many of your communities, thank goodness, the local units of government have said, "We're going to make certain that this family's not going to face an economic hardship. We're going to make up the difference in salary."

So now you have a new expense. The person is no longer there to provide firefighting services and law enforcement, but their salary—at least the difference in salary—is coming out of your budget.

DURBIN:

Then add on to this, perhaps, the hiring freezes that are creating demands for more overtime pay.

So, you put all of that into context. And here's why I wanted to preface my question. Now, we're standing back and saying we want to prepare you to fight terrorism.

And I would imagine if I were in your shoes, the first thing you would say to me honestly is, I've got to worry about having enough people in the squad cars, on the streets, in the fire departments. Certainly, we need gas masks, we need training, we need to know about bioterrorism, but I'm dealing with the basics. Before you offer me a brand new computer, I need to put a roof on my house. And the rain is pouring in.

How do we parse this out? How can we say to you, we want to give you add-on funds for new needs and requirements at a time when you're being hollowed out from within by all the factors that I just mentioned?

Chief Chitwood?

CHITWOOD:

That's a very difficult question to answer, and I'll try and be—tell you what we're doing right now.

As a result of the budget crisis that we're in, we are now eliminating programs. A foundation of what we do in Portland is community policing. And what I've had to do is, I've had to eliminate. I have five centers, so I've had to eliminate an officer in each center and put those officers in the front line.

I had to reduce my DARE program. I had to reduce my Officer Friendly program. Took them out of the schools, put them answering 911 calls. Because that's our priority. People call 911, they expect someone to arrive.

Like Chief Horvath said with respect to his traffic, I had to reduce my traffic unit, I had to reduce my drug unit, to put those officers on the street.

Now, when we have the added manpower issue of having to follow and police the airport, I have the greatest percentage of my force working out of the airport, and I have this big void in what I do on the street. So, that's what we're doing.

With respect to this hearing, as I see the increased threats—we're on an orange alert—my expectation would be, based on the alerts, that soon we could be on a red alert. I hope not, but there's a strong possibility. And that leaves a tremendous hole in the waterfront, you know, the pipeline, the cruise ships, the oil tankers that go through our community. And I don't have the resources to do it. I just don't have the resources to do it.

Earlier, when I talked about the void that I have with respect to 18 officers down, nine are vacant positions due to vacancies. I have three officers—four officers out on stress-related incidents. And when I look at what they made working overtime, they're the highest- paid officers because they're working consistently. Three of them had a heart attack. And these guys are 41, 42 years of age.

Now, I'm not a doctor, and I'm not saying it's directly related, but the stress factors that are put on us to have to fill these slots has had a toll, not only financially, but physically and emotionally.

DURBIN:

Could I ask you, if I might, because my time has run out. But if each of the others could just comment very briefly on this question of whether or not you're seeing a hollowing-out of your basic core of services in firefighting and police at a time when we're discussing add-on funds to fight terrorism, and how you're going to cope with it. If you could just give me a brief response, and I'd appreciate that.

HORVATH:

Yes, Dover Police Department is pretty lucky. We've only lost two sworn police officers to call-up duty by the military. However, we have several officers injured, because it's a dangerous job and they get injured.

I agree with the chief. I've also had to decrease the size of two of my—I've lost a DARE officer to the patrol division, and I've lost a community policing officer to the drug unit. I refuse to decrease the size of my drug unit, because that is one of our biggest problems in the city.

The problem with it is, when a police officer leaves—and I have 13 that can retire this calendar year—it takes about a year and a half to get an officer back on the road, trained, to get him back on the road, trained properly, where he has an effective police officer replacing him.

So, those are problems that we are looking at in the future. But as far as the issue of homeland security, luckily I have most of my department's there, but we are taking away from normal police duties to cover homeland security issues.

A lot of people will call. One of their concerns is, they'd like to see a police officer drive through their neighborhood every once in a while. It's not happening like it should. It's not happening like they deserve it to happen. Because we have them out doing security checks and checking other things in the city that I really won't get into, for obvious reasons.

But it's—the issue of homeland security is pulling from the workforce of traditional police work, and it's taking it to another area. And it would be nice to be able to supplement that.

Another issue of the funds that's really bothering us is we need training and equipment, and we're not getting it. And those issues need to be taken care of.

DURBIN:

Chief Plaugher.

PLAUGHER:

Yes, Senator, you're right on target with your talking about the hollowing-out. You know, every day I have to provide basic services—responding to heart attacks, the threat of fire.

We requested repeatedly some federal help to provide firefighters—the SAFER Act, the FIRE Grant Act Program—those sort of thing.

There is a critical need in every community for first-response resources that has been brought before Congress repeatedly. And we continue to stress that we need those folks capable.

Call-ups to the military have impacted. I have four firefighters, paramedics, who are currently serving in the war effort in various capacities. I have to backfill their absence with additional firefighters. And we are a community that does make up the differences in salaries and benefits to our employees because of our commitment to them and to the work that they do, both in the community and abroad.

However, there's also something else that's occurring that is, I think, of major importance. The threat of terrorist attack in our nation is working on our employees. I am currently now suffering the highest level of injuries in my department's history.

Yes, we're a community that was attacked on 9/11. But it is starting to work at my fabric. It is starting to erode away at my capability to provide services, because the stress is enormous.

And when I say the stress is enormous, it's because they're not seeing federal support for the programs that we're asking for. They see their chief out doing national efforts to make the resources available, but they're seeing nothing coming out the end of the stream.

And so the frustrations just continue to mount from their perspective. And again, I'm at the highest injury level in the history of my department, and that is an enormous cost to my community.

So it is eroding other basic services. When we provide firefighters and paramedics on an overtime basis, more than likely I'm removing resources from a human-services program in the county. Because in our community, public safety gets the highest priority. And so the spill-down effect is to the people who are most in need.

So, I again stress to this committee, let's make this effort work so that our men and women who serve our communities as firefighters and paramedics, police officers, see the product of the efforts, so that, again, these stresses don't have the impact that it does.

BOWERS:

Senator, in response to the personnel part of your question, the SAFER Act is right on target. That will allow the communities to hire people and not bear the full weight of that cost until several years down the line.

In response to the terrorist or weapons of mass destruction portion of your question, some of the things for the fire service that come under some of the other programs—equipment and training—those things will also strengthen our ability to respond to the normal or everyday occurrences that we have to deal with.

So, the SAFER Act will help us to bring more people on board. Strengthening our equipment and training will allow us to be better across the board.

BOWERS:

Also, in terms of the personnel, you've heard it mentioned here by other colleagues, the stress that's related to the high levels of overtime and trying to make this work without adequate resources is another factor that we encounter.

And we're different in the sense that, if we require a certain number of people in a location, we have to maintain that. If somebody's off because they're sick, they've been deployed, we still have to put another person there. We simply cannot leave that spot vacant until the next time somebody reports to work.

And my final point is, locally, we have approximately eight people that have been deployed, with the worst-case scenario of approximately 25 that may be deployed. And some of those people have notified us that they will be deployed for up to two years.

DURBIN:

Thank you.

Thanks, Madam Chairman.