Dept. of Homeland Security pays dividends for Alaska.

Despite its go-it-alone spirit, sparsely populated Alaska is one of the greatest per-capita beneficiaries of federal funding among the 50 states. A major portion of those U.S. taxpayer dollars in recent years has come from large infusions of homeland security grants and appropriations handed out to the state since the 9/11 attacks.

Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s hometown of Wasilla, where she was mayor from 1996 to 2002, has benefited immensely from the anti-terrorism bonanza. Wasilla, with a population of 7,028, has acquired a surveillance system for its water wells, a 150-foot-tall communications tower that altered the city’s landscape, a half-million-dollar mobile command vehicle with off-road capabilities and more.

According to an analysis of federal spending figures and additional records obtained by the Center for Investigative Reporting from the state of Alaska through open-government laws:

• Between 2002 and 2006, Alaska received at least $66.6 million from the most common preparedness grants distributed by the Department of Homeland Security, putting the state behind only three others in per-capita spending: Vice President Dick Cheney’s home state of Wyoming, Vermont and North Dakota. The amount is about $100 per Alaskan, more than half the per-capita figure for the state of New York and $70 more than for each California resident.

• Between 2003 and 2007, Wasilla received at least $1.4 million in homeland security grants, including $987,550 from the assistance to firefighters grant program, for which fire departments apply to the Federal Emergency Management Agency on their own. Alaska received $18.2 million from the assistance to firefighters program in 2002-2008 on top of what it had already won in other homeland security grants.

• Using $244,500 in funding from the 2005 grant cycle, Wasilla constructed a 100-foot-tall communications tower for its small police force. An additional $148,000 came during 2007, to improve law enforcement communications and to raise the new tower 50 feet after the city realized the one it built wasn’t tall enough.
Read on.