Debate Over Cost of Maintaining 9/11 Memorial

Project has $60 million annual operating budget

A debate over balancing the need to honor the memory of Sept. 11 with the enormous costs of running a memorial and museum at ground zero has been reawakened on the eve of the attacks' 11th anniversary, as officials faced questions Monday over the project's expected $60 million-a-year operating budget.

The number comes on top of the $700 million construction cost of the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum. A report Sunday by The Associated Press noted that $12 million a year would be spent on security, more than the entire operating budgets of Gettysburg National Military Park and the monument that includes the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor.