D.C. officials said yesterday that the Bush administration is refusing
to reimburse the District for most of the costs associated with next
week's inauguration, breaking with precedent and forcing the city to
divert $11.9 million from homeland security projects. Federal officials
have told the District that it should cover the expenses by using some
of the $240 million in federal homeland security grants it has received
in the past three years -- money awarded to the city because it is
among the places at highest risk of a terrorist attack. But that grant
money is earmarked for other security needs, Mayor Anthony A. Williams
(D) said in a Dec. 27 letter to Office of Management and Budget
Director Joshua B. Bolten and Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge.
Williams's office released the letter yesterday. Williams estimated
that the city's costs for the inauguration will total $17.3 million,
most of it related to security. City officials said they can use an
unspent $5.4 million from an annual federal fund that reimburses the
District for costs incurred because of its status as the capital. But
that leaves $11.9 million not covered, they said. "We want to make this
the best possible event, but not at the expense of D.C. taxpayers and
other homeland security priorities," said Gregory M. McCarthy, the
mayor's deputy chief of staff. "This is the first time there hasn't
been a direct appropriation for the inauguration." A spokesman for Rep.
Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), chairman of the House Government Reform
Committee, which oversees the District, agreed with the mayor's stance.
He called the Bush administration's position "simply not acceptable."
"It's an unfunded mandate of the most odious kind. How can the District
be asked to take funds from important homeland security projects to pay
for this instead?" said Davis spokesman David Marin. [more]
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