Who Gets What and Why: An Analysis of State Level Funding in the Department of Homeland Security

Abstract

The goals pursued by the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) require the collaboration of dozens of federal agencies and thousands of state and local entities. Intergovernmental funding within DHS has become one of the most politicized and criticized aspects of this process. This study analyzed the US Department of Homeland Security's state grant program from 2002 to 2007 to examine whether strong incentives to distribute these funds politically overrode the impetus to distribute them according to greatest risk or need. Using a random effects panel data model, several independent variables reflecting political and risk factors were regressed to examine the extent each of these factors affects the funding process. This paper further advances the research by explicitly comparing the relative importance of political versus risk factors over a 6 year time period with particular focus on whether allocations within Homeland Security's state grant program are primarily determined by political or objective criterion. The research found, that the political variables are more consistently significant predictors of allocations than the risk variables. The findings also provide evidence that formula grants, administered to states, by federal agencies are still susceptible to political influence.