REVIEW OF DRUG TREATMENT PROPOSED

The Jackson County COMBAT Commission voted Thursday to request $42,000
in its 2005 budget to assess the county's drug treatment needs.

More than a decade has passed since the county's last treatment
assessment, COMBAT program director Jim Nunnelly said.

COMBAT - the Community-Backed Anti-Drug Tax - is a quarter-cent sales
tax that raises money for law enforcement, drug treatment and drug
prevention. Voters approved the tax in 1989 and renewed it in 1995 and
in 2003. Commissioners shifted $32,000 for the assessment from
proposed spending to hire an outside attorney for COMBAT next year.
Acting County Counselor Jay Haden said, however, that money to hire
separate counsel for COMBAT, if needed, would be in his office's 2005
budget request.

In other matters, the commission tabled a proposal to spend $32,000
this year to hire a private attorney for COMBAT. That contract with
Kansas City attorney Bryan Round would include $18,666.69 for work
Round said he had performed for COMBAT since his last contract with
the county expired Nov. 1. The new contract would expire Oct. 31.

In June, Dan Tarwater, chairman of the county Legislature's anti-drug
committee, asked that the contract wait until the completion of an
independent audit of COMBAT.