GRANT DECLINE CUTS PROJECTS

Tulsa Police Forced to Reassess Priorities

Federal grants to the Tulsa Police Department are drying up, forcing
cuts to special projects including those that pay overtime costs for
monitoring sex offenders and for meth-lab cleanups.

Since 2002 -- the earliest year for which records could be located --
grants to Tulsa police from the U.S. Department of Justice have fallen
from about $952,000 to about $373,000 in 2006, said Cpl. Art Surratt,
the Police Department's grants coordinator.

The grants, now called Justice Assistance Block Grants, totaled as
much as $3 million one year, Chief Dave Been said.

The drop has forced the department to take hard looks at the special
programs that are funded by the grants, some of which put more
officers in crime-plagued areas of the city.

The decline is specific to the Bush administration, Been
said.

"I'm not sure I disagree" with the philosophy of cutting federal
grants, Been said. "As a local municipal police department, we need to
find a way to finance our own needs. It shouldn't be up to the federal
government to do that."

Since Sept. 11, 2001, the International Association of Chiefs of
Police reports that the Bush administration has cut about $2.3 billion
that had been going to law enforcement, including proposed 2007 budget
cuts to the Justice Assistance Block Grants.

Been said the Police Department will have to live within its
allocations. He pointed out that the department continues to be
understaffed and won't be gaining any positions for additional
officers this year.

Pending approval by the City Council, the department has about
$554,000 in recently received 2005 grants that are devoted to a list
of programs, Surratt said.

The money will pay for items that include more "stop sticks" that
deflate tires on cars that are being pursued, Global Positioning
Satellite technology for drug interdictions, a data-archiving system
and evidence-storage improvements.

The approximately $373,000 from 2006 grants is not yet available,
Surratt said. Grants from 2003 paid the department about $815,000, and
the following year's grants brought about $334,000.

Faced with decreasing grant funds, department officials had to decide
which programs were the most needed and make changes accordingly, Been
said.

One grant has been used to pay for overtime hours generated while
officers check to see whether sex offenders are living where they say
they do, Surratt said.

The sex-offender registration program could see cutbacks at a time of
high public and political concern about where such offenders live, but
officials are looking at ways to do the job more effectively.

Sgt. John Adams, who supervises the department's sex-offender
registration program, said his unit has been giving on-duty patrol
officers lists of sex offenders' addresses to check when they have the
time. That results in about 15 to 20 hours of work a week but without
overtime costs, he said.

Tulsa has 478 registered sex-offenders, and "we are really behind on
our efforts," Adams said.

Been said the department is looking at several proposals to compensate
for the grant cutback.

One of those options is letting reserve police officers, who are
volunteers, check sex offenders' reported addresses, Adams said.

Another program funded by grants pays officers' overtime for cleaning
up methamphetamine labs and also pays for such items as officers'
protective clothing and respirators.

A $250,000 grant that expires at the end of August has paid for
expenses associated with helping children recover after living in
homes used as meth labs. The city is not renewing that Community
Oriented Policing Services grant, Surratt said.

Anticipating cutbacks to the meth-lab cleanup grant, narcotics
investigators will use their money to replace equipment before the
grant expires, said Sgt. Harold Adair, a supervisor with the
department's Special Investigations Division.

Meth labs are cleaned by a team of officers who are on call and paid
overtime for their work.

Recent state legislation regulating the sale of a primary ingredient
of the drug has dropped the number of labs seized by about 75 percent,
and the teams now average about four to five labs a month, Adair said.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration estimates that the average
cost of cleaning up a lab has fallen to between $2,000 and $3,000, the
Office of National Drug Control Policy's Web site said.

Two programs that put more officers on the streets in specific areas
of the city have been added to the overtime-grant package.

The grant pays overtime costs for officers and supervisors working the
patrols. It has also been used to buy equipment such as barricades,
traffic cones and a trailer to transport equipment.

One area of the North Peoria Enhanced Security Grant's focus has been
violent crime sites, including murders, over the years. Police began
heavily patrolling the 5000 block of North Peoria Avenue after a man
fired shots into a crowd there July 7, 2002. That man, Aundra Maurice
Talton, opened fire in a parking lot and wounded two people. He also
shot at police, who returned fire and killed him.

Another fatal shooting took place there early Oct. 3, 2004, when James
Alan Brown Jr., 38, was killed.

The 21st Street and Garnett Road Security grant is similar to its
counterpart on Peoria, Surratt said.

The extra patrols were in response to violent crimes, including
shootings, in the area, Surratt said. "We have officers there to kind
of keep the peace," he said.