VICTORY IN FAIR FUNDING

Federal Money Provided For Federal Work

Finally, the feds have forked over some money to help reimburse the El Paso
district attorney's office for prosecuting federal drug cases.

So DA Jaime Esparza is revving up those prosecutions in El Paso and
Hudspeth counties, underwritten by $4.2 million that will be available
through Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year.

In a classic understatement, Esparza said, "I'm very pleased with this
agreement. It's been a long time coming." In point of fact, the federal
government has dragged its feet with such reimbursement, no doubt hoping
the border counties would soak up the costs and not gripe too much.

Fortunately, howls of protest were raised along the border, and many border
DAs stopped taking federal cases late last year. That made the feds sit up
and take notice, and now the situation has been at least partially
rectified. But it shouldn't have been this difficult.

U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, said he's worked closely with Texas
Sens. Phil Gramm and Kay Bailey Hutchison to ensure that border counties
are compensated for the extra federal financial burdens imposed on them.

"It costs El Paso taxpayers an estimated $8 million a year to handle the
smaller drug cases," Reyes said. "El Paso has been handling between 300 and
500 federal cases a year. El Paso judges have about 10-20 times more
criminal cases than an average judge in the United States.

"We have increased funding for the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program,
which reimburses states and localities for costs incurred by incarcerating
persons who are illegal. We have also had to fight to receive reimbursement
for our border prosecutors. While some of these problems have been
improved, we still have a lot of work to do in the 107th Congress."

And most of that work will be convincing the feds that they better pay
their fair share to reimburse border officials for doing federal work.