Where Is the $1B in Cybersecurity Funding?

By now everyone knows that earmarked money or percentages for funding cybersecurity have been removed from the State Homeland Security Program (SHSP) and the Urban Areas Security Initiative (UASI) grant funding priorities for the FY 2022 grant year.

What is not clear is this: “Where’s That $1B in State, Local Cybersecurity Grants?”

There are some age-old questions in the article. How do you fund activities that produce results? How do you avoid “spreading the peanut butter” too far so no one gets enough funding to do anything meaningful?

I keep wondering if these funds have to be obligated by the end of September, and if so, with no date for a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) being announced, will we eventually do the federal dance of “Give us your funding priorities/projects next week, please!”

And, what have the feds been doing since Nov. 8, 2021? A notice I found dated then announced the allocation of $1 billion for state and local cybersecurity funding.

I feel like I’m back in the federal roller skating rink and we are playing “crack the whip” and locals are on the end again!