Pubdate: Thu, 10 Mar 2005
Source: Lexington Herald-Leader (KY)
Copyright: 2005 Lexington Herald-Leader
Contact:  http://www.kentucky.com/mld/heraldleader/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/240
Author: Bill Estep

FUNDING CUTS COULD CURB DRUG INQUIRIES

State's Police Rely On Money From Two Federal Programs

Proposed federal funding cuts would hurt efforts by police to fight
drugs in Kentucky, particularly in smaller towns and rural areas where
police have fewer resources and abuse of prescription pills and
methamphetamine is rampant, several police agencies said.

President Bush has proposed cutting the budget for the national High
Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program by more than 50 percent. In
Kentucky, 27 counties in the eastern and southern part of the state
are in the Appalachia-HIDTA, which provides money for task forces of
federal, state and local officers to investigate drug
trafficking.

Bush also has proposed eliminating a separate pot of money that
supports local drug task forces and other crime initiatives.

About a dozen drug task forces around Kentucky, as well as the state
police and Lexington and Louisville police, received a total of more
than $3.5 million this year for drug initiatives from that Justice
Assistance Grant (JAG) program, according to the Kentucky Justice and
Public Safety Cabinet.

Losing that money would require some task forces to lay off agents and
cut back investigations in areas where there are few police devoted to
such work, or even to shut down, said Dave Gilbert, director of the
Lake Cumberland Area Drug Task Force and president of the Kentucky
Narcotics Officer's Association.

Gilbert said his own agency, which has five agents to do drug
investigations in Pulaski, Wayne and McCreary counties, gets 75
percent of its budget from the JAG program. The end of that funding
would mean the demise of the task force -- which handled more than 400
cases last year -- and a rise in crime, Gilbert said.

"It's going to have a very dramatic negative effect" in some areas if
the grants are eliminated, Gilbert said.

John Nowacki, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Justice, said the
proposed cuts are based on the need to devote as much money as
possible to fighting terrorism. The JAG grants also represent a small
amount of the total federal assistance for law enforcement, he said.

Gilbert, however, said the money has been vital to local task forces.

Some police agencies in Kentucky faced with the potential loss of JAG
funding also could be hurt by the proposed cut in the HIDTA program.

The Appalachia HIDTA, created in 1998, comprises 68 counties in
Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia and is headquartered in London.
It has an annual budget of just over $6 million.

Federal authorities criticized the HIDTA in 2002, in part because
federal and state agencies in the task force had taken most of the
money, leaving little funding for local police.

That has changed the last few years, with former federal agent Frank
Rapier as director of the three-state initiative. Local police now get
a much larger share -- $1.6 million annually, compared with $145,000
in 2002, Rapier said.

Observers said the HIDTA has ironed out earlier problems and is a real
asset in the fight against drugs, providing funding and other
assistance in areas where local police are stretched thin.

"Without the support of the HIDTA, local government has few tools to
use," said Beatty-ville Mayor Charles Beach III, a strong backer of
the program.

The increased funding for local police also means they have more to
lose if Congress approves Bush's proposed cut of 56 percent -- $127
million -- in national HIDTA funding.

In the Appalachia HIDTA, such a sizable cut would hurt efforts to
eradicate marijuana, force the agency to disband or cut back on task
forces that helped rack up more than 2,100 drug arrests in the three
states last year and greatly reduce money for police training, Rapier
said.

Rafael Lemaitre, a spokes-man for the Office of National Drug Control
Policy, said the administration proposed cuts in the HIDTA budget and
a change in oversight because of a federal finding that the program
had not been able to demonstrate it was effective in fighting drug
trafficking.

Lemaitre said Bush is proposing an overall increase of 2.2 percent in
drug-control efforts, while concentrating on programs that have
achieved demonstrably positive results.

Directors of the 30-plus HIDTAs around the country argue that the
program has in fact shown positive results, including greater
cooperation among police at all levels and thousands of drug
convictions. The administration's proposed changes are based on faulty
conclusions, according to a position paper from the directors.

It is early in the federal budgeting process and it's not clear
whether Congress will approve Bush's proposed cuts.

Police across the country are working to preserve funding for the JAG
and HIDTA programs, and both have support from members of Congress in
both parties, including Republican U.S. Rep Hal Rogers, who represents
Kentucky's 5th District and has a great deal of clout in the federal
budget process.

In addition to chairing one budget committee, Rogers sits on the
subcommittee that oversees funding for the HIDTA program. He said in a
statement that he is a strong supporter of continued funding for the
program.

"The President's budget is nothing more than a starting point and I
will work, as I do every year, to ensure that our nation's HIDTA
program is properly funded," Rogers said.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin