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No funding in sight for task force

Saturday, February 9, 2008 9:30 PM CST

Anti-drug team handled 555 Hardin cases in ’07

By BOB WHITE

HARDIN COUNTY — The Greater Hardin County Narcotics Task Force was busy last year making more than 620 arrests in nearly 900 new cases and removing more than $2 million worth of drugs from the streets.

But with its federal subsidy cut by two-thirds in 2008, statistics this time next year may not be as impressive.

The local task force is not alone in its funding concerns.

The 67 percent reduction to the federal Byrne Justice Assistance Grant, which funds counter-drug and anti-gang agencies throughout the country, has directors of those task forces looking for money.

Local director Wayne Edwards warned last month of a possible cease of operations if some funding doesn’t come through by June.

Two emergency funding bills were filed with Congress in January requesting the Byrne grant be restored to more than $660 million, but there’s been no movement on the bills, according to Van Ingram, compliance manager in the Kentucky Office of Drug Control Policy.

With the cuts, Ingram said Kentucky will receive about $1.3 million in federal funds this year to pass along to local drug task forces.

“We’ll try to keep as many of them open as possible,” Ingram said.

In the meantime, task force directors are looking closer to home for cash.

In January, prior to Gov. Steve Beshear’s budget speech, task force directors unified in requesting $5 million in state funding to compensate for the loss of federal funding.

There’s not yet been any formal approval or denial of the federal or state requests for funding.

“This is not a luxury, but a necessity,” said Cheyenne Albro, Kentucky Narcotics Officers Association president and director of the 20-county Pennyrile Narcotics Task Force. “If funding doesn’t come through, some offices may face shutdown, then more drug enforcement efforts will fall on local law enforcement.”

The volume of activity the local task force saw last year in Hardin County alone would burden any police agency — 555 of the task force’s 884 drug cases originated here.

Aside from the 181 marijuana investigations, the task force opened 129 cases involving methamphetamine, 109 cases involving prescription drugs and 85 cases involving cocaine and crack. Task force agents also dismantled 22 active meth labs in Hardin County in 2007.

Along with the Hardin County activity, high prescription drug activity in Grayson County resulted 87 cases being opened there last year. The task force began 40 other investigations there last year for marijuana and other drugs.

Similar to Hardin County in caseload, non-marijuana drug activity in Nelson County last year was nearly equally split among pills, cocaine and methamphetamine, with a total of 177 cases being opened there.

Another 30 investigations began outside its primary jurisdiction of Nelson, Grayson and Hardin counties, assisting in Hart, LaRue, Breckinridge and other counties where drug task forces do not exist.

Edwards said some congressmen have succeeded in securing funding for local task forces through methamphetamine eradication initiatives and other means.

U.S. Rep. Ron Lewis recently obtained $188,000 for the Daviess County Sheriff’s Department for meth eradication efforts throughout the 2nd Congressional District.

U.S. Rep. Ed Whitfield managed to get $335,000 last year for Albro’s agency to train police in the 20-county Pennyrile jurisdiction. If additional funding doesn’t come through in 2008, Albro said those meth initiative funds may go toward paying the salaries of agents, rather than education efforts for other law enforcement agencies. About half of Albro’s 15 detectives are paid for through the Byrne program.

“Desperate times require desperate measures,” Albro said.

For Hardin County, federal cuts won’t affect the salaries of detectives working for the task force, which are paid by county, state and city governments partnering with the task force. Edwards said the cuts trim money for his salary, payments to informants, office overhead expenses and vehicle leases.

Since 2004, federal funding for counter-drug agencies has dwindled from $6.9 million to an estimated $1.3 million, according to Kentucky’s ODCP.

Albro and other task force directors say the cuts stem from federal legislators’ and President Bush’s expectations for counter-drug agencies to supplement funding with the sales of seized assets.

Task force directors say that seized assets are not guaranteed and claim the expenses involved in auctioning off the assets often consume much of the would-be profits.

Last year, Hardin County’s task force seized $155,000 in real property, $60,000 in cash and nearly $90,000 in vehicles, Edwards said.

Albro said the cuts agencies are being forced to absorb are a direct result of federal funds being directed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A significant amount of funding also has been allocated to Homeland Security efforts since the attacks Sept. 11, 2001.

According to the International Association of Chiefs of Police, state homeland security grant funding is expected to increase 40 percent in 2008. Law enforcement terrorism prevention program funding also is expected to increase by 21 percent this year.

As funding increases for homeland security and anti-terrorism efforts among law enforcement, drug and anti-gang task forces are trying to navigate their budgets through the two-thirds cut to their federal subsidies.

Bob White can be reached at (270) 505-1750, or at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Source: The News-Enterprise