Description:
H.R. 5823 would authorize the appropriation of $400 million annually over the 2021-2025 period for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to award grants to state and local governments. Grant recipients would use those funds to address cybersecurity threats and risks to their information systems. The bill also would establish the process through which DHS would assess grant applications, review cybersecurity plans, and monitor the performance of grant recipients. Based on historical spending patterns for similar grant programs,CBO estimates that implementing H.R. 5823 would cost $872million over the 2020-2025 period(detailed in Table 1). Such spending would be subject to the appropriation of the specified and estimated amounts. That estimate includes $15million in salaries and expenses over the 2020-2025 period for administrative costs of reviewing grant applications and cybersecurity plans, and communicating with state and local governments. It also includes$5 million for the costs of establishing an external advisory committee. For this estimate, CBO assumes that the bill will be enacted in fiscal year 2020. Under that assumption, the agency could incur some costs in 2020, but CBO expects that most of the costs would be incurred in 2021 and later.
