WASHINGTON – Continuing confusion about how to access an assortment of federal homeland security grants and a lack of flexibility in how to spend that money continues to put the nation’s cities and states at risk, local and state officials told a Senate panel Thursday.

Despite the Bush administration’s stated commitment to spend more money to train and equip local firefighters and police officers and to secure power stations and tunnels, local officials questioned the government’s method of distributing funds by population instead of using more detailed assessments of needs and security risks.

“The nation as a whole still lacks a comprehensive threat and vulnerability analysis,” Detroit Mayor Kwame M. Kilpatrick, co-chairman of the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ Cities and Borders Task Force, testified. “We lack a coordinated, proactive and long-term strategy to lead our nation’s homeland security efforts at the local, state and federal levels.”

The hearing was held before the Government Affairs Committee chaired by Sen. Susan M. Collins, R-Maine.

Collins, whose committee oversees the Department of Homeland Security, introduced legislation Thursday to create a multi-agency committee that would simplify the application process for federal grants and streamline the overlapping planning requirements that states must comply with before accessing security funds.

State officials have complained that the inflexibility of federal grants has made it difficult to move funds earmarked for specific training programs or equipment purchases, which they say has resulted in a lopsided and inefficient security effort. Collins also has introduced legislation that would authorize the Department of Homeland Security to grant waivers to states that want to shift funding from one category to another, depending on needs.

States and municipalities access funding for equipment through five separate federal programs. While the Department of Homeland Security now oversees the bulk of homeland security-related grant programs, other grants are available from the Department of Health and Human Services and the Environmental Protection Agency.

“We could create 50 full-time jobs across the states to track federal homeland security grant opportunities and share information,” Art Cleaves, Maine’s director of emergency management, told the panel.

As a primarily rural state, Cleaves said, it is essential that Maine state agencies take a leading role in distributing resources and coordinating state and local authorities. While stressing that he wouldn’t support handing over spending authority to the Department of Homeland Security, the federal government should play a key role in guiding state efforts to effectively allocate the funding.

“I do think a better job at coordination can be done at the top,” Cleaves said, adding that the Department of Homeland Security and other federal departments should use the “bully pulpit” to encourage states to coordinate the efforts of state agencies involved in homeland security.

City, state and federal officials also haven’t agreed on who should manage the billions of dollars flowing in their direction. Should federal funds flow directly to the cities or be distributed by state agencies?

Cities say federal grants have been bogged down and politicized by state legislatures and have left cities holding the short end of the stick. Yet, while agreeing that cities face the most pressing needs, state officials argue that federal money should be distributed based on detailed statewide and regional security plans, efforts that are best coordinated through state agencies.