Interoperability fund struggles to get off the ground
Congressional Research Service dings DHS for failing to reach a memorandum of understanding with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration; a 30 September deadline looms, and security officials worry about 2008 budget cuts
Those readers hoping to get their hands on the $1 billion federal radio interoperability fund created by the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 may have to wait a little longer as government authorities try to sort out who will have the power to make dispersals. According the Congressional Research Service (CRS), DHS has failed to take the neccesary steps to establish authority over the program, which is supposed to be administered by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration in coordination with homeland security officials. Yet no memorandum of understanding exists at this time between the agencies, meaning that the grant allocation program cannot move forward — despite a loooming 30 September 2007 deadline under the Call Home Act of 2006, and despite the fact that the 2008 DHS budget cuts interoperability spending by $1 billion in anticipation of the interoperability fund.
-read more in Alice Lipowicz’s Washington Technology report
