By Mark Scott
Buffalo, NY – An audit by Erie County Comptroller Mark Poloncarz finds that the county is appropriately spending millions of dollars in federal and state homeland security funding.
Poloncarz says the county received $14.1 million in funding from the Urban Area Security Initiative over a three year period ending in 2005. He says there were just a couple of minor problems involving payroll issues.
But for the most part, Poloncarz says the county's internal controls on the use of homeland security funding are "robust."
Poloncarz says much of the federal funding the county received was used to purchase and install security equipment and communications systems. But he says a portion was used to buy nine vehicles, eight of which are allowed for take-home use by county emergency personnel. Poloncarz says such purchases fall within the appropriate use of homeland security funding. He says it's up to the County Legislature to decide whether that's a wise use of such funding.
Poloncarz says his office studied the county's homeland security spending to avoid a problem similar to one now affecting Shelby County, Tennessee. He says Shelby, which covers the Memphis metropolitan area, must return hundreds of thousands of dollars in improperly spent funds.
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