Washington ? The Bush administration intends to slash counterterrorism funding for police, firefighters and rescue departments across the country by more than half next year, according to budget documents obtained by The Associated Press.

The Homeland Security Department has given $23 billion to states and local communities to fight terrorism since the Sept. 11 attacks, but one document says the administration is not convinced that the money has been well spent and thinks the nation’s highest-risk cities have largely satisfied their security needs.

The department wanted to provide $3.2 billion to help states and cities protect against terrorist attacks in 2009, but the White House said it would ask Congress for less than half – $1.4 billion, according to a Nov. 26 document. The plan calls for outright elimination of programs for port security, transit security, and local emergency management operations in the next budget year. This is President Bush’s last budget, and the new administration would have to live with the funding decisions between Jan. 20 and Sept. 30, 2009.

The Homeland Security department and the White House Office of Management and Budget, which is in charge of the administration’s spending plans, would not provide details about the funding cuts because nothing has been finalized. “It would be premature to speculate on any details that will or will not be a part of the next fiscal year budget,” OMB spokesman Sean Kevelighan said, because negotiations between the White House and the Cabinet departments over the budget are not finished.

“There’s been staunch support of our department, and you’ll see it again this February” when Bush’s 2009 budget emerges, Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke predicted.

The proposal to drastically cut Homeland Security grants is at odds with some of the administration’s own policies.

The White House’s plan to eliminate the port, transit and other grants, which are popular with state and local officials, would not go into effect until Sept. 30, 2008. Congress is unlikely to support the cuts and will ultimately decide the fate of the programs and the funding levels when it hashes out the department’s 2009 budget next year. The White House routinely seeks to cut the budget requests of federal departments, but the cuts proposed for 2009 Homeland Security grants are far deeper than the norm. Congress has yet to approve the department’s 2008 plan.

“This budget proposal is dead on arrival,” said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. “This administration runs around the country scaring people and then when it comes to putting their money where their mouth is, they say ‘sorry, the bank is closed.”‘