AUGUSTA – In May 2002, state officials led by then-Gov. Angus King crafted the Strategic Plan for Maine Homeland Security. A year and a half later, many of the ambitious goals and objectives that were developed during a four-day meeting in Bangor have yet to be met. Some may take another year or longer to accomplish.

“We were too optimistic in the timelines we set out,” Art Cleaves, director of the Maine Emergency Management Agency, said last week. “I know I was more optimistic than I should have been in a lot of areas, including how fast we would get federal funding.”

With the state spending very little on homeland security, federal funds are crucial to meeting the goals. But only in the last six months has the state received significant funding, with just over $22.5 million allocated to date to MEMA.

“And one of the real problems we have faced is, as the federal dollars did arrive, they came with strings attached,” said Brig. Gen. Bill Libby, deputy adjutant general of the Maine National Guard and deputy commissioner of the Department of Defense and Veterans Services. “The things that we need to accomplish in Maine are significantly different than what they need to accomplish in California.”

Libby, who has been nominated to become commissioner of the agency, said meeting the goals set out in 2002 will certainly be a major part of his job.

“I personally believe that Maine is much better prepared today to respond and recover from a terrorist event than it was on 9-11,” he said. “But we are not nearly as far as we need to be.”

The first objective set forth by the group that included state officials, as well as representatives of several private-sector companies and organizations, was to identify the threats and vulnerabilities in the state.

The state has identified the potential targets, according to Cleaves, and begun planning how to respond to specific terrorist-attack scenarios. In many cases, the response plans draw on the same resources and don’t vary all that much from one potential target to another, he said.

But the second objective – to prepare first responders across the state – is behind schedule. Basic training to enable all firefighters, police officers and other first responders to handle weapons of mass destruction or hazardous materials was scheduled to be completed a year ago. While some training has occurred, Cleaves said, it probably will take at least another year to meet the goal.

“I will say I was one who thought the training could be done more quickly,” he said. “It has taken far longer than I would like.”

Cleaves said he hoped the ongoing distribution of personal protective equipment to all first responders would help spur local officials to schedule needed training.

Way behind schedule and potentially the biggest price tag, a third objective was to establishing a statewide communications system with backup capabilities that would allow any state agency to communicate with any local first responder anywhere in Maine.

Currently, for example, there are several areas of the state where state police, local police, and firefighters use wireless radios with different frequencies and can’t communicate with one another without switching to cell phones or relaying messages through a dispatcher. With so many dead zones, cell phones aren’t a reliable alternative either. Several mock disaster drills involving multiple agencies have only served to underscore communications as a major problem area.

While the goal was to have a system fully installed and operational by May 2004, the state has yet even to develop a plan for how to proceed.

“We have had several meetings, but we will not have a recommendation ready for this Legislature as I had hoped,” said Public Safety Commissioner Michael Cantara, who is part of a working group of state officials charged by Gov. John Baldacci with developing a plan.

The group was astounded earlier this year when a consultant hired by the state outlined communications options that ranged in cost from $40 million to $208 million.

Another objective identified in 2002 called for strengthening the state’s ability to recover from a terrorist attack or a natural disaster. A plan was supposed to have been completed by last month.

“We do have plans in place for most places,” Cleaves said, “but we have not been able to prepare them for everywhere.”

One area where the state has met its goals involved developing plans and preparing facilities to respond to a public health crisis or a bioterrorism attack. Dora Mills, director of the state’s Bureau of Health, said last week her agency did better than other state agencies because it received federal funding more quickly. Funding was obtained sooner because of a streamlined application process set up by the federal Department of Health and Human Services, Mills explained.

“We were able to spend the money we needed to spend much sooner than others,” she said. “I think that is the key. We had the resources.”

But as the department met the goals of the original strategic plan, Mills said, additional objectives were identified.

“We have had training for a lot of health care providers, and we have purchased a lot of needed equipment,” she said, “but we are not ready. We are more ready than we were, but we still have a lot to do.”

Fortunately, the state has been allocated about $11 million a year in federal funds for the public health area to help the department accomplish its goals.

Meanwhile, Libby said the Department of Defense and Veterans Services will maintain the lead responsibility for homeland security as the state continues to work on fulfilling the goals established in May 2002.

“Our expectation back then was that all of the federal funding would come through the [federal] Department of Homeland Security, and that has not happened,” he said. “I think we have done a pretty good job of coordinating, despite that.”