EDITORIAL: Focus on best use of homeland security funds

The perennial war of words over anti-terror funding took an absurd turn this week to a skirmish over unspent dollars. When New York officials railed against cuts in some anti-terror grants that Washington announced last week, federal officials fired back that New York has $337 million from past years that remains unspent.

Countering the terrorist threat is too important for such political wrangling.

Some things are indisputable: This region is the nation's No. 1 terrorist target, and the lion's share of homeland security grants should go where the risk is greatest. With the pace of attempted attacks accelerating, this is no time to cut money for the city and surrounding suburbs.

Rather than arguing endlessly about how much money is enough, a more productive debate would be about what kind of spending will actually make us safer. What will deliver more security per dollar: eyes and ears, like police and dogs; or technology, like radiation detectors?

As for Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano's slap that New York still has unspent millions from years past - so what? Some lag from allocation to expenditure is inevitable. Projects must be planned and approved, contracts negotiated, compliance with environmental and other laws ensured. And work on complex projects - say, hardening underwater train tunnels - can take years to complete.

Finger-pointing isn't productive. Ensuring that spending delivers better security is. hN