COUNTY BOARD KEEPS A STRICT HOLD ON FUNDS

The Mower County Board of Commissioners is taking a rigid stance
against spending.

Even if it is a popular program for children and teenagers to learn
how to fight drugs.

The Austin Police Department has done away with its Drug Abuse
Resistance Education program. Now, the Mower County Sheriff's Office
DARE program may also be doomed.

On Tuesday, the county coordinator, Craig Oscarson, told the
commissioners, chief deputy Mark May wrote the county commissioners
requesting they consider funding to keep the DARE program alive in
out-county schools.

May, a former detective in the Sheriff's Office, was a DARE
instructor. Today, Deputy Sheriff Barry Reburn is the department's
DARE instructor.

The DARE program concluded in the spring and presently is not funded
for a repeat performance in the 2004-2005 school year.

None of the commissioners expressed interest in funding the program
again. The consensus was that the program would have to be funded from
the Mower County Sheriff's Office budget.

Garry Ellingson, 5th District commissioner and a retired long-time
Mower County Sheriff's deputy and chief deputy, said, "I think we
should leave it up to Sheriff Amazi whether or not to continue DARE in
the schools."

At that point, Oscarson reminded the commissioners, "If that is your
decision, Sheriff Amazi would have to do that with money from her budget."

The county board's finance committee has begun examinations of budget
requests.

The process will continue through the summer and into the fall before
announcing the results at the annual Truth In Taxation hearing in December.