A budgetary black hole

Taxpayers can count on two things in a time of crisis: ridiculous amounts of all-new government spending on urgently needed programs previous generations somehow did without, and absolutely no accountability built into the hastily created bureaucracies.

The political reaction to the collapse of America's financial sector appears destined to add several volumes to this sorry saga. Meantime, the government's ongoing answer to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, continues to suck greenbacks from the public purse and deliver little in return.

A legislative audit of Nevada's Division of Emergency Management, which received a jaw-dropping $148 million in grants from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security between 2003 and 2007, uncovered an agency incapable of maintaining a single file cabinet, let alone reviewing and refining response plans for worst-case-scenario disasters.

Even worse, the audit found, the division's administrators lied to elected officials in 2006 when they reported receiving emergency plans from every state and local agency and major hotel. Only 53 of 96 agencies, school districts and local governments had submitted plans, and hotels are not required by law to share their plans with the state. The few plans on file were outdated and showed no signs of ever being reviewed by Emergency Management officials.

After an employee quit in 2006, the division stopped keeping track of emergency response equipment owned by local governments. Yet in 2007, the division gave the state's planning efforts the highest possible rating, 5 points out of 5, in a report to Homeland Security.

"Why do you call yourself Emergency Management when you cannot do ordinary daily work?" Assemblyman John Marvel, R-Battle Mountain, said during Wednesday's meeting of the Legislature's Audit Subcommittee. Assemblywoman Sheila Leslie, D-Reno, said it was the worst audit she has seen in six years on the panel. As an additional slap, Emergency Management officials flatly rejected four recommendations from auditors seeking compliance with state law.

Remembering the most valuable lesson from "The Government Worker's CYA Handbook: How to Preserve Your Job, Your Budget and Redirect the Outrage of Taxpayers and Elected Overseers," division Deputy Chief Kamala Carmazzi told the subcommittee her agency simply didn't have enough employees to do the work mandated by state law.

Her tired excuse was countered by Legislative Auditor Paul Townsend. He quoted her boss, Emergency Management Chief Frank Siracusa, who during a June 27 meeting of the Legislature's Interim Finance Committee thanked lawmakers for allowing him to use some of the federal grant largess to hire five new workers. Mr. Siracusa said one new staff position would be dedicated to handling planning, and the others would help the agency comply with the audit.

Ouch.

The audit determined there is "little assurance" that the state and local governments can collaboratively respond to major emergencies or quickly identify and locate needed equipment.

But the audit's flaw is its driving assumption that the state law which spells out the mission of the Division of Emergency Management is sound public policy -- that without such an entity, lives and property are inherently at a higher risk of being wiped out by a major disaster in Nevada.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Emergency Management spokesman Dan Burns, in trying to defend his agency, actually makes a compelling argument for its elimination by pointing out the excellent responses to this year's Wells earthquake and Fernley flooding. And he makes the common-sense observation that local emergency response agencies not only know what equipment is at their disposal, they also know what neighboring jurisdictions have in inventory.

How on earth did Southern Nevada agencies manage to fight the deadly 1980 MGM Grand fire or mitigate the 1988 PEPCON industrial disaster without the help of a waste-laden state bureaucracy?

"We have proven the state of Nevada is prepared," Mr. Burns said.

Yes, Mr. Burns. Nevada emergency responders have done just fine without any meaningful contribution from your agency.

The state's audit of the Division of Emergency Management confirmed the existence of yet another budgetary black hole, of an abyss of accountability, of a multimillion-dollar fraud put upon the taxpayers in response to their terrorism fears.

Lawmakers don't need to follow up on this audit with months worth of inquiries and hearings on compliance measures. They need to do away with the Division of Emergency Management, federal grants be damned.

It's time to put this dog down.