The city of San Diego will receive a record amount of federal grant funding this year under the Federal Urban Areas Security Initiative, Mayor Jerry Sanders is scheduled to announce this afternoon.
The city will get 110 percent of the funds it is eligible for under federal guidelines, Mayoral Spokesman Bill Harris said. Harris said a number of cities around the country were urged to apply for more funding than they were eligible for, but San Diego was the only city that got the extra cash.
“It was kind of astounding, actually,” Harris said.
Harris wasn’t sure, but he said he assumes the feds gave the city the extra money because San Diego has been very effective at spending homeland security grants in the past. That’s something I’m quite familiar with.
A few weeks ago, in researching this story, I spent some time scouring federal audits of San Diego’s homeland security grant program. I found that the feds were largely pleased with how the city had spent the money. Despite some teething problems early on, the feds concluded that the city had spent all the money correctly and didn’t fine or otherwise penalize San Diego.
The same can’t be said for all the federal money the city receives.
In case you missed it, I wrote this story last year and this piece last week about the city’s spending of federal Community Development Block Grants.