With the clock running on a $204,375 grant for a boat and other equipment, Sheriff Martin Pace and Warren County supervisors remain at odds over how much matching money can be found and if details can be changed to lower the $51,093.75 county match.

“We will have to find out exactly what we can do to tweak this grant,” Pace told supervisors Monday, adding three-way talks with the sheriff’s department, county administrator and the state are all but assured.

“If we don’t come up with the matching money, if we send this money back to the (U.S.) Department of Homeland Security, we’re not going to get another one,” Pace said.

Grant funds have flowed to state and local governments since the federal Cabinet-level agency since was created in 2002 out of previously separate entities governing disaster response, immigration and customs enforcement, maritime safety and more. The Jackson-based Mississippi office oversees nearly $100 million in grants to multiple cities and counties in the state for building operations centers and buying equipment, among other uses, according to releases from the office.

Port security grants typically are good for a year before funds expire, said J.W. Ledbetter, director of the Mississippi Office of Homeland Security, reached late Monday. The agency presented the boat grant earlier this month, in conjunction with the Mississippi Department of Public Safety. Ledbetter said the grant to Warren County and one to the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources for operations on the Gulf Coast are among few requiring a local match. The office continues to push for such local contributions to be removed from security-related grants, Ledbetter said.

Supervisors took no vote on the matter and said they weren’t notified as the 2009-10 budget was crafted during the summer of any upcoming grants in need of local matching money. Budget amendments, common in the City of Vicksburg but a rarity in recent county administrations, appears unlikely.

“Someone’s going to have to give up something,” Board President Richard George said later, adding his only information on the grant application came from news accounts and not from the state or the sheriff’s department. “We don’t know if it has a Caterpillar or an Evinrude (engine).”

Cuts were OK’d for 31 of the county’s 45 general-funded departments and other entities for the budget year to begin Oct. 1. Funding for the sheriff’s department and jail is down $159,757 over last year, with fewer new cruisers and personnel surviving the final version. Information on Homeland Security money for the coming year indeed detailed $200,000 in expected funds, including a boat. No need for a local match is stated in the departmental budget requests, however.

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Contact Danny Barrett Jr. at dbarrett@vicksburgpost.com