Dear Mayor:

Governor McGreevey today released the first public annual report of New Jersey's Domestic Security Preparedness Task Force , the state's cabinet-level body responsible for setting state homeland security and domestic preparedness policy and for coordinating its implementation. Attorney General Peter C. Harvey, who chairs the Task Force, wanted to make the report available to mayors coincident with its public release.

The enabling statute that established the Task Force (P.L. 2001, Ch. 246) calls for the Task Force to provide an annual confidential report only to legislative leadership and the chairs of select committees. This year the Task Force decided to release a public report so that our citizens could have a better idea of the many initiatives New Jersey is taking to protect them and key infrastructure in the state from potential terrorist attack.

This report provides an overview of the Task Force's comprehensive activities for 2003. It includes a summary of the strategy New Jersey has adopted to spend homeland security grant funds and other resources, and also provides a breakdown of the activities of the Task Force's individual constituent agencies.