14 DRUG TASK FORCES FACE SHUTDOWN OVER FUNDS

State's Units Investigate Street-Level Trafficking, Homicides And Burglaries

The future of the state's 14 multijurisdictional narcotics task
forces was left in limbo Friday with uncertainty over funding for the
new fiscal year that begins Monday.

A committee appointed by Mississippi Department of Public Safety
Commissioner George Phillips has not approved funding for the task
forces, said Claiborne County Sheriff Frank Davis, whose county is a
member of the North Central Narcotics Task Force.

The task forces attack street-level drug trafficking and also
investigate major crimes such as homicides and burglaries.

"We went through this same thing last year," Davis said of the task
force that serves his county. "As it stands right now, we have not
been funded." Other counties in the eight-member North Central
Narcotics Task Force are Tunica, Coahoma, Grenada, Holmes, Humphreys,
Leflore and Yazoo.

Four employees of the North Central Task Force, the state's largest,
will be out of work beginning Monday if no money is appropriated by
then, said Holmes County Sheriff Willie March. He questioned why task
force members must wait to learn if they will receive money from the
Byrne Justice Assistance Grant. About $1 million of the nearly $3
million grant is to go to the task forces, he said.

Phillips couldn't be reached Friday.

When asked about the funding, DPS spokeswoman Delores Lewis replied,
"The committee is still deliberating."

But Davis said the committee isn't scheduled to meet again until Oct.
10.

Last year, only the North Central Task Force had to wait for
funding.

Davis said the federal government appropriated even more money for
the new fiscal year than this current fiscal year.

"I can't understand it when you have counties totally depending on
the task force to stop drug dealers," Davis said.

The North Central Narcotics Task Force has worked between 400 and 500
cases from September 2006 to this September, March said.

DPS said last year the federal funding had dropped from $5.3 million
in 2003 to about $2 million because of a shift from drug interdiction
to homeland security.

Then, DPS warned all multi-jurisdictional task forces to reduce
spending by 25 percent.

Last year, two days before the beginning of the new fiscal year, the
North Central task force was notified its budget had been eliminated
based on performance standards, the most significant of which were
arrests. A sheet used to compare the effectiveness of task forces
showed the North Central task force made 35 drug arrests in 2005, but
local officials said DPS erred in its calculations.

Funding was restored in mid-October until December of 2006. It was
then restored for the entire fiscal year.