FADE RUNS SHORT ON DRUG-BUY MONEY

GRAYSON - The FIVCO Area Drug Enforcement Task Force is running a little
short on drug money.

At a meeting last week of the agency's board of directors, FADE Director
Bob Jessie said the account the task force uses to pay for undercover drug
buys had been squeezed by budget cuts.

Last fiscal year, the task force received $50,000 for drug buys, Jessie
said. This year, the allotment was reduced to $40,000.

Of that, $16,000 has already been spent, "and it's only the first quarter,"
Jessie said.

"We've been very busy, and we've bought larger quantities than normal," he
said.

Jessie said the pinch might mean the task force will have to dip into its
forfeiture account - where it keeps money from asset forfeitures in drug
cases - to pay for narcotics buys.

He said he was reluctant to do that, though, because he thought the
forfeiture account needed to be built up as a hedge against future budget cuts.

"We're going to need a pretty good cushion. We need to plan on another 3
percent cut next year," he said.

Jessie said he planned to instruct FADE officers to stretch the remaining
$24,000 in the drug-buy account as far as possible by purchasing smaller
quantities.

He said a sizable portion of the money that's been spent this fiscal year
had gone toward making a case against a Greenup County man who was recently
charged with trafficking in heroin.

An officer purchased about 30 packets of "China white" heroin from the
suspect before making the arrest, he said.

Jessie said he could not identify the suspect because he hasn't been
indicted yet.

He said the task force would eventually get back the $6,000 it spent in the
case, as soon as the money is no longer needed as evidence. However, it
will have to be listed as program income, rather than going back into the
buy account, he said.

The FADE board took no action last week, essentially telling Jessie to do
what he needed to do.

"We don't want to pass up an opportunity just because we don't have the
money," said Raceland Mayor Dick Fields, a board member. "We might as well
close up and go to the house if we're going to do that."