SEIZED DRUG CASH BENEFITS SCHOOLS

Cash seized in drug busts is now more likely to help school libraries
stock their shelves with "Harry Potter," "Chronicles of Narnia" and
"Sisterhood" books than ever before.

A law signed this week by Gov. Jim Doyle makes it easier for law
enforcement agencies to collect money from drug crimes. A portion of
that money is then funneled to the Common School Fund, which gives
money to the state's school libraries.

Previously, law enforcement agencies could sell property confiscated
from a drug crime. A portion of that money went back to the law
enforcement agency, while the rest went to the Common School Fund.
But in drug busts in which $5,000 or less in cash was confiscated,
neither benefited.

The Common School Fund has many funding sources, including fines for
nursing home, campaign or insurance violations; confiscated property;
penal fines; and some credit card fees, said Tia Nelson, executive
secretary of the Madison-based Board of Commissioners of Public Land,
which operates the Common School Fund. The earnings from the Common
School Fund are then distributed on an annual basis to school districts.

The Wausau School District received about $220,680 in Common School
Fund money last year, more than any other school district in Marathon
or Lincoln counties. That money is used for all library materials
that are catalogued and housed in the library, such as print
materials, audio books, CD-ROMS and, of course, books.

The school district's libraries' two main funding sources are the
school budget and the Common School Fund, said Wausau East High
School Librarian Beth Molski.

"We rely very heavily on this money, especially since the price of
books has escalated so much within the past five years," she said.
"The more money I have for books, the better our library will be. So
I'm very dependent on any extra penny I can get."

Incentive For Police

Police always have had the option to funnel drug bust money to the
Common School Fund, but because law enforcement agencies did not get
any of the money back, few did. In 2005, only $4,291 in drug money
collected and processed by law enforcement agencies went to the
Common School Fund.

A drug bust last year in Brown County illustrates how far the money
can now go under the new law. Usually, when a drug bust involves more
than $5,000 in cash, federal law enforcement agencies step in. They
receive a small percentage of that money (about 20 percent), and the
local law enforcement agency receives the rest.

But in the Brown County drug bust, in which $11,000 in cash was
seized, federal law enforcement agents did not become involved. If
the new law had been in place, about $5,100 of that money would have
gone to the Common School Fund; the rest would have gone to Brown
County police. That one drug bust would have netted the Common School
Fund $800 more than all the money collected from cash seizures all of
last year.

"Even with smaller (money) confiscations, like street-dealer types,
the police wouldn't get that money back, even though the
investigation and going through the court process cost them money,"
said Rep. Garey Bies, R-Sister Bay, who was the lead author of the
bill. "So they couldn't justify the expense and time (collecting and
processing that money for the Common School Fund) would take, even
though the money went to a good cause.

"This at least gives law enforcement agencies the incentive to
recover their costs, which in turn puts money into the Common School Fund."

Police Benefit, Too

Because there is now a greater potential for money confiscated in
drug busts to go into the state's school libraries, Bies is hoping
federal law enforcement agencies become less involved in busts that
net high dollar amounts.

Drug bust money goes toward training and equipment at the Everest
Metro Police Department.

For police to collect on that money under the new law, they're going
to have to prove that the money was a part of the drug crime, said
Capt. Scott Sleeter of the Everest Metro Police Department.

"If you arrest a person for possession with intent to deliver, maybe
for a pound of marijuana, and in the same safe there's $1,000 in
cash, then that suggests the money was associated with the drugs," he
said. "It just depends on the circumstance."