ASHINGTON, Dec. 3 — The Bush administration has decided to wait several months to spend more than $1.5 billion in law enforcement and antiterrorism assistance allocated by Congress to local police departments and emergency agencies, citing Congress's inability to pass appropriations bills in the recently ended session.

The decision means that cash-starved police and fire departments, many of which have received no promised federal assistance since the fiscal year began in October, will have to wait until at least January or February to get the money.

The Justice Department said it would not spend any of the money, which includes funds under the popular Community Oriented Policing Services program passed under President Bill Clinton and money for "first responders" to terror attacks, until Congress reaches agreement on new spending bills next year.

"These funds are how we make our streets safer and our communities workable," said Mayor Thomas M. Menino of Boston, the president of the United States Conference of Mayors. "If you decimate these programs, how can we plan? It's very shortsighted of them."

Congress put the money for the programs in a stopgap spending measure that carries the federal government at last year's level through Jan. 11. But in a letter to local agencies dated Monday, Assistant Attorney General Deborah J. Daniels said the stopgap measure made it impossible to give the money to localities when the Justice Department could not plan out its budget.

The administration had wanted to cut and restructure two major law enforcement assistance programs, putting its stamp on ideas held over from the Clinton era, but because such changes are not possible under the stopgap measure, the department will simply wait until it gets a full appropriation several months from now, said Ms. Daniels.

"At this point we can only speculate on the availability of resources for the balance of the fiscal year," wrote Ms. Daniels, who is in charge of the Office of Justice Programs. "We regret the inconvenience these restrictions on our ability to award funds may cause some of our grantees during this interim period." Ms. Daniels is the sister of Mitchell E. Daniels Jr., the White House budget director, who has often clashed with Congress over allocating money for the same programs.

A Justice official, who asked not to be identified, said the department was actually trying to help localities avoid additional paperwork. Rather than have local agencies apply for grants now and then again early next year, the official said, the agencies can simply wait and apply after Congress reaches a resolution.

But with state and local budget reserves drained by a widespread fiscal crisis, many law enforcement and emergency agencies say they cannot afford to wait.

Trina Hembree of the National Emergency Management Association, which represents state and city emergency agencies around the nation, said: "We've got lots of agencies with hiring freezes, and now they're going to have to look at further budget cuts and layoffs. I don't understand how we can keep being told about imminent attacks on the country, but with no funding to increase our preparedness."

For months, Congressional Democrats have criticized the Bush administration for saying that homeland security is its top priority, while failing to spend the money necessary to equip fire departments, police agencies and medical response units to deal with terrorist attacks. Today, several Democrats said the administration should find a way in the next few weeks to spend some of the interim money Congress authorized in the stopgap measure, known as a continuing resolution, to prevent local agencies from further budget cuts.

"On the one hand, the administration has made clear that there is a major risk of another attack and that we're all to be more vigilant," said Representative Jane Harman of California. "But on the other hand, they're refusing to provide resources which they have to people who can respond to such an attack. I think it's potentially enormously harmful. Those attacks could come tonight or tomorrow, and who is supposed to respond to it?"