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SOUTHERN REGIONAL DRUG AND VIOLENT CRIMES TASK FORCE: FUNDING LOSS MAY PUSH DRUGS

PRINCETON - When members of two Princeton neighborhoods became convinced this spring that drug dealers were living and working next door, they called the Southern Regional Drug and Violent Crimes Task Force. 

For weeks, officers with the undercover unit and other Mercer County law enforcement agencies kept their eyes on the Old Beckley Road and Lower Bell Street houses in question, stopping motorists as they left and tracing potential drug-trafficking patterns.  In early April, they arrested two suspects accused of a variety of drug and weapons charges. 

At the time, task force Coordinator Sgt.  J.  Centeno said his officers had answered the community calls for help. 

Now, he's asking for assistance from the citizens he hopes to continue serving and the lawmakers who charge him with protecting local streets.  Without that help, there may not be anyone there to take similar calls in the future. 

The Southern Regional Drug and Violent Crimes Task Force is a multi-agency partnership forged with local law enforcement officers and federal funds and tasked with tracking and removing drug activity in Mercer, McDowell and Wyoming counties.  Armed with six officers, including Centeno, in-depth drug training and sophisticated surveillance equipment, the task force works an average of 300 drug-related cases per year. 

Centeno isn't sure his elite law enforcement team will be able to continue that trend if he loses 67 percent of the federal funds previously allotted to the task force, and time is running out for lawmakers to rewrite the current budget bill. 

The 2007 omnibus appropriations bill slated to take effect July 1 would reduce funding for grants that support multidisciplinary, collaborative task forces from $520 million to roughly $170 million. 

Losing more than two-thirds of his federal funding will eventually force the public to pay for the task force's services, put an undue burden on the parent agencies that provide its investigators or take its officers off the beats they've worked years to get inside. 

"Many of the cases we work start with calls or complaints from the public," Centeno said.  "If Congress continues these cuts and we don't get any funds, pretty soon, there won't be anybody on the other end of the line, other than a uniformed officer, who is already doing all he can." If that happens, Centeno predicted an increase in the drug dealers free in southern West Virginia and a surge in the products they push.  He estimates there are, or have been 150-200 people in custody on drug charges his officers pursued.  Without those officers, he said similar people will never answer to their crimes in court. 

"These are going to be drug dealers that will be on the streets if funding doesn't come through," he said. 

Making the task force

Much of the federal funding to fight drugs is designated through the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas ( HIDTA ) program that identifies the areas of the United States that are particularly at risk for harm due to drugs and their trade.  The program was formed in the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 and reauthorized in 1998, according to www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov.  The director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy has the duty of designating HIDTA territories, with input from the U.S.  attorney general, secretary of treasury, secretary of homeland security and heads of the national drug control program agencies, as well as the governors of states involved. 

The Appalachia HIDTA was added to the federal initiative in 1998.  It included the states of West Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee and was at first designed to target the cultivation and sale of marijuana.  Since that time, prescription painkillers, cocaine and even methamphetamine have become drug problems in the region. 

Although the Mountain State is part of HIDTA, specific counties must also be identified.  The more counties and the more area included in the HIDTA, the more federal funding allocated.  While Centeno said Kentucky and Tennessee each have approximately 28 counties included in the HIDTA designation and funding cycle, he said West Virginia only has nine. 

McDowell County's inclusion helped propel the 2001 formation of the local drug task force.  Including one officer from each of the Mercer, McDowell and Wyoming county sheriffs' departments, the West Virginia State Police and the Princeton and Bluefield police departments, the six-member unit is the only organization in the three counties created specifically to deal with the drug problem.  Compared with places like Raleigh and Kanawha counties, which each have three drug units assigned, Centeno said the Southern Regional Drug and Violent Crimes Task Force is especially effective and efficient. 

"With less people, we're covering three times the area," he said. 

"It's a very expensive operation, but really, we're very cost-efficient," Centeno said. 

Financing the fight

Currently, the Edward Byrne Justice Assistance Grant program, also known as the Byrne/JAG program, provides $520 million to multi-jurisdictional organizations that fight crime.  It's a critical funding source for cooperative law enforcement efforts, like the task force, that target the manufacture, distribution and use of all drugs. 

Unless lawmakers act quickly, that program will drop its funding to only $170 million and cost task forces nationwide a large chunk of their funding, possibly their existence. 

Locally, the Southern Regional Drug and Violent Crimes Task Force parent organizations contribute the officers and a portion of their salaries in order to keep the task force running.  Their forces also routinely assist in executing the search and arrest warrants that arise from task force investigations. 

But, Centeno said federal funding and monies obtained through investigation forfeitures furnish the remainder of the officers' pay, state-of-the-art equipment needed to complete covert investigations and money to buy the drugs needed for convictions in the courtroom.  The costs of in-depth, high-tech investigations run high. 

"When a police officer investigates a report of a domestic or a burglary, there are, of course, costs involved - the officer's pay, his vehicle, the fuel to get there..." he said.  "But, when we investigate a report of drug activity, we have all of that, plus it involves the cost of purchasing an illegal product - drugs.  We have to purchase them to get the evidence we need for a conviction."

Estimating controlled drug buys for the average local case run his task force $200, Centeno figured his officers spend at least $60,000 a year just to purchase the drugs they need to seal the average of 300 cases. 

He said the task force currently gets approximately $86,000 "that barely covers a portion of [officers'] salaries," and another $100,000 in federal grants and supplements that pay for overtime, supplies, training, drug buys and more. 

All together, he said federal funds account for about $200,000 of his force's annual budget.  And, although many drug task forces could function largely on property and financial forfeitures obtained as a result of investigations, Centeno said most local drug dealers sell simply to feed their own addictions.  They often go to jail once the task force investigations are complete, but Centeno said they rarely leave much property or money behind to fund future operations. 

Finding the funding

Centeno typically encourages southern West Virginia residents to call him if they have a drug problem.  Now, he's asking them to call their congressional representatives if they believe his task force is part of the solution. 

"Otherwise, the drug dealers are going to run over us," he said.  "It's only logical that the drug dealers are going to run to the place they feel safe."

He said the Appalachian region of southern West Virginia could offer that haven, without the federal funds that keep SRDVCTF investigations going. 

So far, U.S.  Rep.  Nick Rahall has been outspoken in his support of the Byrne/JAG program and the task forces its funding supports.  He recently cosponsored H.R.  5180, which would provide emergency supplements to the grant program. 

"The JAG program enables local law enforcement and drug task forces to shut down meth labs, take drugs out of our schools and keep criminals off our streets," he said in a recent media release.  "Restoring these funds is critical for the safety of our communities, families and children of West Virginia."

Also this spring, Sen.  Jay Rockefeller signed a formal request urging West Virginia's senior senator, Robert C.  Byrd, and Sen.  Thad Cochran, chairman and ranking member, respectively, of the Senate Appropriations Committee, to restore the grant money that funds more than 4,000 officers and prosecutors working on more than 750 task forces in all 50 states. 

Centeno said he had not heard from Byrd on the push to provide funding, but he said he would welcome support from legislators and residents alike.  He hoped for a time soon when he may concentrate solely on drug busts instead of dollar signs and budgets. 

"We're fighting for funding right now.  We're fighting for something we shouldn't even have to be worried about," he said.  "We should be out on the streets fighting drugs." For more information on the Southern Regional Drug and Violent Crimes Task Force, call 327-DRUGS. 

To contact state lawmakers, call ( 304 ) 325-6222 to reach Rahall's local office; ( 304 ) 253-9704 for Rockefeller; or ( 304 ) 342-5855 for Byrd.  Or, visit their respective websites at www.rahall.house.gov; rockefelller.senate.gov or byrd.senate.gov.