BUDGET PANEL DEADLOCKS ON FIGHTING METH

GOP lAwmakers Unmoved By Doyle's Plea For Emergency Funds To Stop Spread Of
Drug

Madison - The state Legislature's budget committee Thursday defeated
proposals to let Attorney General James Doyle hire additional agents to
fight the spread of methamphetamine in Wisconsin.

The Joint Finance Committee rejected, on 8-8 party-line votes, requests for
emergency funding to allow Doyle, a Democrat, to hire seven, four or three
agents to help local law enforcement authorities in the war against the
powerful stimulant in western Wisconsin.

Sen. Brian Burke (D-Milwaukee), committee co-chairman, described the
situation, particularly in southwestern Wisconsin, as a crisis, and the
response of Republican committee members as surprising and embarrassing.

However, Rep. John Gard (R-Peshtigo), the other co-chairman, said the state
budget already calls for hiring three more agents and that Doyle was trying
to circumvent the budget process by asking the committee for more money.

Gard also blasted Doyle for waiting until now to seek seven agents, saying
the meth problem is not a new one. In March, when the finance committee was
working the budget, Doyle sought only three more agents, a request that was
approved.

"I don't think anyone here is under the illusion that methamphetamine
happened overnight," he said. "This has been going on for a long time . . .
It's unfortunate that this request has kind of reared its head here, and
then all of a sudden, we've got a crisis."

Doyle said he was puzzled by Gard's comments and disappointed that
Republicans on the committee had made a partisan issue of an urgent call
for help from local law enforcement authorities.

"Until their vote, where they just nixed this on straight party lines, it
had not been partisan at all," Doyle said. "This sort of inexplicable
action by the Joint Fiance Committee is in the face of strong support of
all the law enforcement officials in that area."

Doyle said county sheriffs and police chiefs who support the additional
funding are from areas of Wisconsin represented by Republican legislators.

Furthermore, he said, Republican Sens. Brian Rude of Coon Valley and Dale
Schultz of Richland Center and Assembly Speaker Pro Tem Steve Freese of
Dodgeville supported his request.

Doyle had requested $451,600 this year and $403,900 next year to hire seven
special agents. Under that plan, four agents would be based in southwestern
Wisconsin, two in northern Wisconsin, and one in Madison.

But Rep. Sheryl Albers (R-Loganville) offered an alternative motion to hire
three agents, one in each region and one in Madison. That also was defeated.

Burke argued that the crisis has grown since Doyle submitted his budget. He
warned lawmakers that meth could quickly spread across the state. He
recalled his days as a Milwaukee County prosecutor in the 1980s when a new
form of crack cocaine hit Milwaukee's streets and the number of homicides
jumped from 70 a year into triple digits.

"This is a crisis," Burke said. "This is something we have to address on a
bipartisan basis. I think it's just silly to be posturing here. I can't
believe this discussion is taking place."

Doyle said in an interview Thursday that he first asked for three agents a
year ago when he submitted his budget request to Gov. Tommy G. Thompson. He
said it was based on the drug's spread from the Twin Cities into northwest
Wisconsin. He said Thompson pared his request to one agent, but the finance
committee agreed to three.

Doyle said his latest request was based on a new crime wave in southwestern
Wisconsin.

"Just in this last several months, in southwestern Wisconsin, they have
uncovered about 20 meth labs," he said. "So it is moving quickly, spilling
out of Iowa."

State and federal officials have worked together on several fronts to help
curb the meth problem in western Wisconsin.

In March, Doyle and U.S. Attorney Peggy Lautenschlager launched an effort
that included increasing the number of agents working on meth cases and
more training for local law enforcement agencies in western Wisconsin.

And last month, U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) was in Platteville to announce
that the state was getting a $1 million federal grant for increased
enforcement and education efforts.

The drug can be made easily in clandestine laboratories with relatively
inexpensive over-the-counter ingredients.

"It is coming from Iowa, where methamphetamine has now become the single
biggest drug problem that they have at the state level," Doyle said. "We
have fought this in a very strenuous way up in the northwest part of the
state with task forces of federal, state and local agents. We want to do
the same in southwestern Wisconsin."

Doyle described it as a serious problem that should concern all legislators.

"This isn't just a problem in southwestern Wisconsin," Doyle said. "We have
seen now what this has done in Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, the Dakotas. We
can see it moving into Wisconsin, and what we are really working very, very
hard to do is to build an early state response, to show a very strong law
enforcement presence immediately, so that we're not dealing with this five
years from now across the state of Wisconsin."