Plans announced by the Bush Administration to slash counterterrorism funding across the country could further reduce support for several police, fire and emergency management programs in the Tri-Cities.

But it is too early to know how programs would be affected.

The Associated Press reported that president would like to cut the Homeland Security Department's counterterrorism funding for police, firefighters and rescue departments across the country by more than half next year.

The Homeland Security Department has given $23 billion to states and local communities to fight terrorism since the Sept. 11 attacks, but the administration is not convinced that the money has been well spent and thinks the nation's highest-risk cities have largely satisfied their security needs.

Tri-City emergency management departments and police and fire agencies have received about $1 million in the past six years for counterterrorism funding. The money has been used to buy heavy rescue equipment for Benton fire districts, a bomb squad truck for police, a mobile robot for entering and investigating dangerous situations and two command vehicles for Benton and Franklin counties.

This year's funding includes a law enforcement grant of about $100,000 for radios and training for officers, said Bob Spencer, manager of Benton County Emergency Management.

Emergency Management also is using counterterrorism dollars to pay for a homeland security planner, Spencer said.

Rob Harper, spokesman for the Washington Emergency Management Division, said $1.2 million was allotted in 2007 by the Department of Homeland Security for Washington's region 8, consisting of Yakima, Klickitat, Benton, Franklin and Walla Walla counties. That amount was $200,000 less than what was provided in 2006, he said.

The Homeland Security Department wanted to provide $3.2 billion to help states and cities protect against terrorist attacks in 2009, but the White House said it would ask Congress for less than half - $1.4 billion, according to a Nov. 26 document.

The plan calls outright elimination of programs for port security, transit security, and local emergency management operations in the next budget year. This is President Bush's last budget, and the new administration would have to live with the funding decisions between Jan. 20 and Sept. 30, 2009.

The Homeland Security department and the White House Office of Management and Budget, which is in charge of the administration's spending plans, would not provide details about the funding cuts because nothing has been finalized.

The White House routinely seeks to cut the budget requests of federal departments, but the cuts proposed for 2009 Homeland Security grants are far deeper than the norm. Congress has yet to approve the department's 2008 plan.

In some years the grant program has created more ill will than security.

In 2005, the administration cut by 40 percent the counterterrorism funding to New York and Washington, D.C., the two cities hit hardest on Sept. 11. New York lawmakers were furious, and the Homeland Security official in charge of the grants program eventually resigned. Since then, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has promised to apply more common sense and less "bean-counting" in grant decisions.

Chief Bob Gear of Benton Fire District 1 said Homeland Security funding has been shrinking every year. Most of the money assigned to Washington state has been directed toward metropolitan areas, he said.

"We always knew it was going to be temporary," said Tony Corsi, chief of the Richland Police Department.

Spencer noted that Benton County's Emergency Management Center has a $50,000 matching grant from the Emergency Management Performance Program, which he hopes will not go away.

"We have expected that it will be increased significantly for several years," he said.