PARIS – Proposed changes in the Department of Homeland Security budget could, if passed, threaten federal funding to county emergency management agencies, said Dan Schorr, director of the Oxford County Emergency Management Agency.

“They’re robbing Peter to pay Paul,” Schorr said of a congressional proposal to consolidate the Emergency Management Performance Grant Program with other Homeland Security grant programs in the 2004 Homeland Security budget. “They’re impacting the ability of us to do our day-to-day job,” Schorr said.

EMPG program is funding the Maine Emergency Management Agency receives from the Federal Emergency Management Agency that is passed on to the counties to cover half of EMA costs. It covers expenses for EMAs to operate and respond to all types of natural and man-made disasters, from an “all-hazards” approach. It pays for salaries, benefits, center operations, communications, warning and equipment programs.

In Oxford County, elimination of the program would cost taxpayers a minimum of $30,000, stated Oxford County Commissioners in a letter of appeal sent last month to U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe.

“While there is increased focus on homeland security, some federal funds also need to be maintained for EMPG, since the funds are designed to build important state and local emergency management capabilities from an all-hazards approach,” commissioners wrote to Snowe.

Lynette Miller, spokesperson for the Maine Emergency Management Agency, said MEMA’s Director Art Cleaves has asked all the state’s county commissioners to draft letters to Maine’s congressional delegation protesting the proposed elimination of the funding.

Emergency management agency officials are concerned that if EMPG funding is consolidated with other Homeland Security grant programs, that funding won’t be available for all-hazard response, Miller said.

“If this comes down as, say, a block grant (to the states) for Homeland Security, it might be diverted for other purposes,” Miller said. “We’ve seen an over-emphasis on Homeland Security in the past year and a half” since the World Trade Center attack, she said.

While Homeland Security grants have been made to states, the EMPG funding “hasn’t been going up at all,” she said.

Miller said MEMA just wants to be sure the new Homeland Security budget has designated funds for basic emergency responses.

“Some of those little counties are just staying afloat” with their EMA offices, she said, “and if they had to shoulder more, that would be very difficult.”

In fact, Schorr said county EMAs are expected to take an active role in coordination of Homeland Security operations involving acts of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, Schorr said. The national emphasis on homeland security has generated major planning and coordination efforts among county EMAs, and promises of increased funding, he said.

Those promises have yet to be realized, he said, and he’s concerned that county taxpayers are going to have to make up the difference.

ggeraghty@sunjournal.com