LOSS OF FEDERAL FUNDS COULD HURT TRIDENT

The Bush administration's desire to "zero out" money allotted from the
Justice Assistance Grant Program could prove damaging to the regional
drug task force that serves Raleigh and Fayette counties.

TRIDENT coordinator Ronnie Booker said the task force uses that money
to pay officers overtime.

"If that does happen, it would create more of a financial burden for
our parent agencies," Booker said, referring to the Raleigh and
Fayette sheriffs' departments, Oak Hill police and National Park Service.

"Drug law enforcement can't be done in an eight-hour period," he said.
"We have to pay our officers overtime, and if those agencies aren't
capable of handling that, then our asset forfeiture will have to do
it."

Booker said TRIDENT operates mainly from its asset forfeiture funds,
items and money captured as a result of its investigations. Vehicles
and operation expenses (money used by undercover officers to buy
drugs) come from that. Because of those funds, TRIDENT is financially
stable.

"But if the task forces aren't financially stable and the parent
agencies aren't financially stable, then that's going to hurt," he
said.

Perhaps an even more painful result would be the problem communities
would face should drug law enforcement funding result in fewer drug
arrests, he noted. The Bush administration has said it wants to
dedicate funds currently used by West Virginia's regional drug task
forces to programs under the Department of Homeland Security.

"Although homeland security is important, drugs are a more immediate
threat in West Virginia," Booker said. "The drug problem is so bad
that drugs will create more problems to everyday life in West Virginia
than the threat of someone terrorizing us."

The drug culture, he explained, is directly related to crimes of theft
and violence.

"Those are the acts that are terrorizing communities in West
Virginia," Booker said. "Reducing funding for drug law enforcement for
homeland security is going to make it like 'Night of the Living Dead.'"

Booker said funding cuts could result in the inability to pay overtime
or cause task forces to employ fewer highly trained drug law
enforcement officers, and leave West Virginians with no direct
benefits from the funds taken from drug law enforcement grants and put
into homeland security.

"They've said drug dealings have financed some of the terrorist
organizations," Booker said. "It makes no sense to reduce drug law
task forces when drugs are a part of the terrorism problem."

West Virginia's allotment from the Justice Assistance Grant Program
already has fallen from $4.4 million in 2003 to $3.3 million for the
fiscal year that begins July 1, according to Michael Cutlip, deputy
director of the state Division of Criminal Justice Services.