Who Gets what and Why---an Analysis of State Level Funding in the Department of Homeland Security

The goals pursued by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) require the collaboration of dozens of federal agencies and thousands of state and local entities. Intergovernmental funding within DHS has become one of the most politicized and criticized aspects of this process. This study analyzes the Department of Homeland Security's state grant program from 2002 to 2007 in order to determine whether or not the strong incentives to distribute these funds politically is overriding the impetus to distribute them according to greatest risk or need. Using a random effects panel data model, I regressed several independent variables that reflect both political and risk factors to determine to what extent each of these factors is driving the funding process. This paper further advances the research by explicitly comparing the relative importance of political versus risk factors over a 6 year time period. I specifically answer the question of whether allocations within Homeland Security's state grant program are primarily determined by political or objective criterion, finding that the political variables are more consistently significant predictors of allocations than the risk variables. The findings also provide evidence that formula grants, administered to states, by federal agencies, are still susceptible to political influence.