LAWTON – Comanche County Emergency Management has updated and resubmitted its grant application to the Oklahoma Office of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity grant program.
The Comanche County Facilities Authority, which is made up of the three county commissioners, authorized emergency management director Clint Langford on May 28 to sign the new application.
Emergency Management is applying for a $145,000 grant from Homeland Security’s cybersecurity program, which will fund improvements to Emergency Management’s cybersecurity system. The county does not have to supply matching funds for the grant.
After Emergency Management submitted the original grant application, staffers learned that some of the items on the application had been categorized incorrectly, Langford said in a May 31 email to a Southwest Ledger reporter.
“The FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) guidance was vague, and we misunderstood how to categorize to meet their format,” he said.
Correcting the errors in the original application essentially changed it, Langford said. That meant he had to ask the Facilities Authority for permission to sign a new application.
Langford said the mistakes have been fixed, and the new grant application has been sent to Homeland Security. He added that the county’s requirements have not changed – just the process of applying for the grant. Improving cybersecurity The emergency management center applied for the grant after staffers reviewed the center’s existing cybersecurity system, Langford said in a May 6 interview. Staffers concluded that the system needs upgrades to make it more resilient.
If Homeland Security approves Emergency Management’s grant application, the department will use the money to upgrade its cybersecurity system. Those improvements would include creating a redundant switching function, which would allow the center to switch to a different network if the original network is disrupted.
The grant would also help Emergency Management establish continuity of operations, which would allow the center to move to a different site if necessary without affecting its work.