ANTI-METH GRANTS MISS THEIR MARK

WASHINGTON Some states with significant methamphetamine problems have not
received their share of federal money because lawmakers have directed the
bulk of a grant program to pet projects, the Justice Department inspector
general said Thursday.

More than $179 million in anti-meth money administered by the
department 84 percent of the grant funds has been earmarked, as the
practice is known, by members of Congress for programs in their states and
districts. Inspector General Glenn A. Fine said.

"As a result of the significant use of congressional earmarks in this
program, funding is not always directed to the areas of the country with
the most significant meth problem," Fine said report examining the grant
program from 1998 to 2005.

The Bush administration has proposed ending most meth-related earmarks in
the budget for 2007. Lawmakers have indicated they are unlikely to go along.

One example cited by fine: Missouri ranked second, behind California, in
seizing 11,859 meth labs between 1998 and 2004. But it was tenth in grants
received with $3.7 million.

Texas and Illinois were 10th and 11th in the number of labs seized, but
23rd and 25th, respectively, in money from the meth initiative.

Meanwhile, the Sioux City, Iowa, police department was given $10 million
for a training program that Fine said was not focused on meth or any drug.
Instead, "classes focused on enhancing general law enforcement skills, such
as interviewing and self-defense," he said.

In Vermont, the State Police used more than half of their $2.4 million
grant for a task force to combat heroin. In Hawaii, where police seized 76
meth labs over seven years, a nonprofit group used $8.4 million in money
targeted at meth for a variety of anti-drug programs.

Fine also faulted Justice's Office of Community Oriented Policing Services,
or COPS, for its oversight of the program. The audit said there was a lack
of coordination between officials in the COPS office, weaknesses in the
database used to manage and track grants and insufficient and inconsistent
monitoring of recipients of the money.

In a response to the audit, COPS director Carl Peed said Fine's staff took
an overly rigid view of the grant program's standards for awarding money.
But Peed agreed that his office needed to improve its monitoring.