SHALLOTTE, N.C. - The state of North Carolina has changed its formula for homeland security funding so money will no longer go automatically to local emergency management offices.

Although emergency officials in South Carolina aren't facing the same problem, cuts in overall federal homeland security funding to both states have local officials wondering how they will pay for maintenance and replacement of equipment purchased since 2002.

County leaders on both sides of the line see the federal program, although necessary for protection against terrorism, as another unfunded mandate that starts with a cash infusion from elsewhere and ends with unwanted additions to local government spending.

Although the money buys equipment used by local emergency and law-enforcement personnel, it's a national security program, said Horry County Council Chairwoman Liz Gilland. And national security should be paid for by the federal government, she said.

North Carolina has chosen to split its 2005 allocation from the federal Office of Domestic Preparedness between a statewide communications system for the State Highway Patrol and competitive grants for regional counterterrorism efforts.

The change means Brunswick County, which has received nearly $649,000 since the funding began in 2002, will have to dig into local tax money if it is to outfit a second mobile decontamination unit or buy more protective gear for those who respond first to a terrorist attack.

South Carolina is not following the same path. Despite an $11 million decrease in federal homeland security money to South Carolina this year, Horry and Georgetown counties will get more in per capita funding in fiscal 2005 than they got in 2004.

Horry County is getting $365,190 from the 2005 funding cycle versus the $335,944 it got in last year's cycle.

In the Coastal Carolinas, the money has paid to complete Brunswick's mobile decontamination unit, equipped a regional hazmat team based in Horry County and bought the Georgetown Sheriff's Office a camera to let officers see around corners and into second-story buildings without exposing themselves to gunfire.

Emergency management officials say the money has given them the tools to better handle the immediate aftermath of a terrorist attack.

No one is willing to rank where they think the Coastal Carolinas counties are on a list of terrorist targets, although each county has things local officials believe vulnerable. Georgetown County has a port, Horry County a bevy of tourists and Brunswick County a nuclear plant next to the nation's largest depot for shipping military weapons and ordinance overseas.

"One terrorist act at any resort destination will impact all resort destinations," said Randy Webster, Horry's emergency management director. "The same way with ports."

Local officials also worry about the maintenance and replacement costs of equipment they've bought over the past three years. The federal government will let the agencies use the equipment for things other than terrorism response - such as hurricanes - but it's not giving any money to replace what's used. That means agencies will have to rely on local taxpayers to replace protective suits that cost between $250 and $500 apiece and can be used only once.

"It's the sucker grant syndrome," said David Sandifer, chairman of the Brunswick Board of Commissioners. Federal or state governments give money to local governments for things such as homeland security and then change the rules so that local governments bear ongoing costs, he said.

Horry County's Gilland agreed. She said beefing up local governments' ability to deal with terrorists is "vitally necessary" but added that the funding system "is just another unfunded mandate."

Both said the decisions over what ongoing costs their governments might be willing to pay would be balanced against other county needs.

The change in North Carolina's funding philosophy is a further refinement that began in the second year money was available, said Ken Taylor, the state emergency management director.

At first it was available only to buy federally specified equipment and to conduct exercises aimed at disaster response. The second round allowed localities to train personnel to use the new equipment; and the third added planning to the list.

The money can't be used to hire personnel.

North Carolina decided to go to a system of regional grants this year because the Federal Emergency Management Agency guidelines for the 2005 allocation used the word "regionalization" 18 times, Taylor said.

The lack of automatic local funding in North Carolina this year is not the only difference in the way the two states approach homeland security.

After the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford named a homeland security czar and the state created a statewide and regional councils to determine needs and establish priorities. North Carolina put its homeland security effort into the office of the secretary of Crime Control and Public Safety and brought together a conglomeration of officials from existing agencies to direct how money would be spent.

At first, both allocated local emergency management offices a minimum amount of money plus additional funds based on a county's or city's population. Both also began spending money on statewide and regional teams to handle special situations within a geographic area.

North Carolina, for instance, has a statewide urban search and rescue team based in Wilmington. New Hanover County, where Wilmington is located, is home base to several mobile decontamination units that could be used regionally.

South Carolina also has a statewide urban search and rescue team, but it has located smaller units in heavily populated areas, including Horry County. There are four regional hazmat teams in Horry, Charleston, Greenville and Richland counties as well as six agri-terrorism teams in the state.

South Carolina's State Law Enforcement Division - the equivalent of North Carolina's State Bureau of Investigation - has a joint terrorism task force with the state's Federal Bureau of Investigation field office.

"We have never had a day when we haven't had something to investigate," said SLED Chief Robert Stewart. He declined to give examples.

Emergency managers aren't surprised at the change in allocations from the federal government. North Carolina got more than $18 million less money, or $35,959,211, this year statewide because the Department of Homeland Security decreed that more dollars need to go to major U.S. cities.

Randy Thompson, Brunswick's emergency services director, doesn't think the county will fare badly with the regionalization emphasis. But he doesn't like the state spending so much on the highway patrol communications system it has chosen to buy.

The federal government has emphasized the need for homeland security to fund communications systems so emergency personnel from all agencies can talk to one another during a disaster response.

Brunswick and others used much of the early funding to set up 800 megahertz systems to do just that, and Brunswick's is designed so different brands of equipment can link to it.

The N.C. highway patrol system relies on a different brand of radio to use it throughout the state.

The problem, Thompson said, is that Brunswick emergency personnel can't plug into it if they're working outside Brunswick County. That, to Thompson, is not achieving the goal the federal government set.

He and Sandifer think the state should have set funding priorities based on apparent threat levels.

Both feel Brunswick should get more money than other counties with more population because of the nuclear plant, munitions depot and nearby port. But neither questions the benefit of the money the county has gotten.

They believe lives will be saved because of what Brunswick and other counties have done so far with homeland security funding. And, said SLED's Stewart, some people are always going to question every cent governments spend.

"I don't know how you can minimize the seriousness of [Sept. 11, 2001]," he said. "The same people who are doing that are the same people who would criticize us for not doing enough if something went wrong."