Pubdate: Sat, 18 Dec 2004
Source: Sioux City Journal (IA)
Copyright: 2004 Sioux City Journal
Contact:  http://www.siouxcityjournal.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/945
Author: Michele Linck, Journal staff writer

CONGRESS CUTS TRAINING CENTER FUNDS BY 90 PERCENT

The 13,000-page omnibus appropriations bill passed by Congress last
month contained funding for the Sioux City Police Department's
Regional Training Center. But it was only $250,000 -- $2.25 million
short of what's needed.

Meanwhile, the Midwest Counterdrug Training Center, started two years
ago at the Iowa National Guard's Camp Dodge near Des Moines, received
$3.5 million in an August Department of Defense appropriations bill.

If more money isn't found for Sioux City, the Training Center won't be
able to operate much beyond next Sept 30, the end of the federal
budget year.

Police Chief Joe Frisbie said it could stay in business until Jan. 1,
2006, but, with only $250,000, it would probably shrink to a one-man
facility by year's end and would accomplish much less training.

Since it was created seven years ago with $1 million snagged by
then-5th District U.S. Rep. Tom Latham, the center has trained 17,000
law enforcement officers from 35 states in drug interdiction
techniques such as tactical communications, deadly force situations
and vehicle searches. It will begin a new program, training for
officer-drug dog teams, in March.

Frisbie said the federal government has identified money from illegal
drugs as a primary source of terrorist funding, and drugs are known to
drive nearly all other crimes in communities. "Terror and crime: put
those two together and have the federal government walk away? It makes
you wonder what they're thinking," he said.

Frisbie will meet with someone from the office of U.S. Rep. Steve
King, R-Iowa, next Wednesday to discuss the center funding problem. He
is also working to get a group of Iowa law enforcement leaders to go
to Washington next month to lobby for support of drug interdiction and
training programs.

The timing is critical since the center's best hope for full funding
this budget year is the supplemental appropriations bill that will
come before Congress in February.

In addition, the chief said he will be asking the leaders of police
departments that have used the center to lean on their own
congressional delegations to support its funding.

Show me the money

It's not clear what happened to the $2.5 million budget request, which
had shrunk 90 percent when it emerged from the conference committee.
At first everyone thought it was a typo, Sgt. Mike Hamm, a trainer and
program coordinator at the Training Center, said.

The cut was apparently made in conference committee, where senators
and representatives work out the differences between bills before
sending them back to each house for a vote.

The office of 5th District Congressman King said he initiated the $2.5
million appropriation twice, both times through letters to the
subcommittee chairman. In a statement relayed by his office, King
said, "I've identified an appropriations strategy and I'm working
across the rotunda to reach a solution for the Training Center."

Hamm said U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley's office told the department the
federal government never cuts a program 90 percent, that it would end
it instead. A spokesman for Grassley, R-Iowa, said the money was not
in the bill when it went to conference, but that the senator would
work with Sioux City "in any way possible" to get the funding next
year. He said it was harder to get "earmarks" such as the Training
Center funded in the 2005 budget.

A spokesman for U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, said the funding was an
earmark on the House side but didn't appear in the bill that was sent
to the conference committee. "That, coupled with the Bush reduction in
(anti) crime funding, made it more difficult to get," he said.

Frisbie said in his conversations, congressional offices have blamed
"glitches," but can't or won't be more specific. "More than anything
else, I'd like to get some answers about where the money went," he
said. He said it seems all the money is being funneled into homeland
security. "We haven't figured out how to get it out of there," he said.

Drug dogs hike request

The center has received annual funding of $2.2 million in recent
years. The extra $300,000 in this year's request is to cover
increasing costs and to pay for training the new officer-dog teams.
Frisbie said the center was approached by Congressman King's office to
add that training, but it was based on money already in hand. The city
used a federal grant to buy 10 fully trained dogs, which will be
received in March. They'll train with their officer, then be
distributed to 10 cities in this region.

The Sioux City Regional Training Center was initially designed to
train officers within 150 miles. But, because it pays for the training
and because it soon became so highly regarded, departments from even
the largest cities -- New York, Chicago, Dallas -- began sending
officers here five years ago.

While the officers' own departments pay their salaries while they're
in Sioux City, the Training Center pays the cost of their training,
gives them meal money and pays for their hotel. The center regularly
uses five hotels near its location at the Sioux City airport, pumping
money into the community.

The Sioux City Regional Training Center is the only civilian-run
counterdrug training center in the country. There are six others, all
at National Guard bases, including the center at Camp Dodge, near Des
Moines.

Frisbie said he tried to get that center based at the 185th Iowa Air
National Guard Refueling Wing in Sioux City so the two could cooperate
and complement each other. That didn't happen, likely for political
reasons. None of the other centers are so close together as Sioux City
and Des Moines.

While the Sioux City center trains only law enforcement officers and
their departments' employees, the Camp Dodge facility is beginning to
provide drug education for community groups and agencies, according to
Lt. Col. Tim Glynn, commandant of the Counterdrug Training Center. He
said that funding for Sioux City's training center and his comes from
different budgets. "I think we both have a good role to play," Glynn
said.
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MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin