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YELLOW SHEET Office of the State Auditor of Missouri |
Report No. 2006-29
May 2006
The following findings were included in our audit report on the Department of Public Safety, Homeland Security Program.
Missouri has lagged behind several neighboring states in establishing an intelligence fusion center and may have increased the state's vulnerability to acts of terrorism. An intelligence fusion center is needed to provide resources, expertise, and information to help detect, prevent, and monitor terrorism within the state. This center will be threat-driven, operational 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Future federal funding may be contingent on the establishment of such a center. The idea of an intelligence fusion center has been discussed since January 2003 with various projected costs and funding sources. Finally, in December 2005, staffing began on a Missouri fusion center and it was officially named the Missouri Information Analysis Center (MIAC). Department personnel indicated that it may take another two years to fully staff the MIAC.
The state distributed almost 19,000 individual personal protective equipment (PPE) complements to emergency medical services (EMS) and law enforcement agencies (LEA) statewide. The PPE included breathing masks, chemical suits, gloves, boots, and related accessories. PPE was distributed to some local agencies that did not need or want the equipment. We visited 43 EMS, fire, and LEA agencies and noted several different levels of effective use of the PPE. Some agencies claimed they were waiting to obtain training. One agency supervisor indicated he and his staff did not even know how to assemble the PPE components. At the police departments for the cities of Kansas City and St. Louis, as well as other locations, PPE remained unopened and stored in its original boxes. Furthermore, SEMA did not adequately monitor the distribution of the PPE and does not have accurate records of the various agencies that received equipment.
Also, a lack of information exists regarding the proper storage and/or issuance of the PPE. We noted that some local agencies required that PPE be stored, ready for use, in official vehicles, while other local agencies stored the PPE at their headquarters to be issued in the event of an emergency. In addition, there are no statewide use restrictions to guide local agencies. Personnel at some agencies that we visited claimed they did not know usage requirements and limitations for the PPE. The lack of such restrictions may result in improper usage occurring. One local official informed us that part of the PPE may be used for personal hunting.
Missouri's progress has been slow towards achieving its goal of communications interoperability. Communications interoperability enables responders to effectively communicate with one another through a common language and a common system during an emergency. In 2004, a contractor hired to review the state's interoperability reported that Missouri had not achieved interoperability across many areas of the state, emergency responders were not properly trained or equipped to communicate in a unified environment, and that communications equipment was old and costly to maintain. The same contractor was again hired the next year to assess and monitor Missouri's 28 Homeland Security Response Teams (HSRT's). In their monitoring report, the contractor found communications interoperability problems, along with several other response weaknesses, existed with 46 percent of teams, including the HSRT's in the high risk areas of the cities of St. Louis and Kansas City. Common issues reported by the contractor included a lack of radios and cellular telephones, age of the equipment, and a lack of towers and repeaters.
As of July 2005, statewide expenditures for communications interoperability had accumulated to $2.05 million, or approximately 26 percent of the amount budgeted to accomplish this goal. The contractor's initial communications interoperability study found no formal leadership authority for communication issues in Missouri and that the state needed coordinated and integrated planning to shape its communications future. Also, SEMA did not conduct a formal needs assessment prior to contracting for the communications interoperability study and it appears state officials were already aware of the statewide interoperability problems. As a result, the state may have unnecessarily paid approximately $247,000 for the 2004 study.
Also included in the report are recommendations related to the strategic plan, program monitoring and oversight, federal compliance issues, and response team issues.
