NEW YORK CITY-Security operations throughout the PortAuthority of New York and New Jersey’s facilities,including the region’s major airports as well as the World TradeCenter complex, will be centralized via a new department that’s setto be created by the end of September, the Port announced lateThursday afternoon. The authority’s board voted Thursday toimplement a nationwide search for its first-ever chief securityofficer, who will report to Patrick Foye, thePort’s executive director.

During the search for a CSO, Foye and deputy executive directorBill Baroni will oversee a transition team that will help assemblethe new security division. The Chertoff Group,co-founded by Michael Chertoff, former USSecretary of Homeland Security, will assist in the transitionplanning, according to minutes of the board’s Thursday meeting. ThePort had retained the Chertoff Group in May 2011 to study thebistate agency’s management of security operations, and extendedthe contract this past December.

Chertoff’s consulting firm concluded that although the Port hadinvested considerable sums in hardening security around criticalPort facilities and infrastructure and had bolstered inter-agencypartnerships, the security operations were highly decentralizedwith a lack of coordination, according to a release from the Port.A report last month to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomoand New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who hadordered a top-to-bottom audit of the agency’s operations this pastAugust, noted “the magnitude of growth in size and cost of thesecurity apparatus” across the Port’s operations since 9/11.