WHERE HAS ALL THE DRUG MONEY GONE?

Unlike other states and the federal government, Georgia doesn't track cash
and property from drug cases - and local authorities aren't always acting
responsibly.

Local police make a drug bust and seize cash from the sale of crack cocaine.

Want to find out what happened to that money? You can't in Georgia.

Unlike other states, Georgia does not keep track of cash and property
forfeited in state drug cases.

So local law enforcement agencies make up their own rules about how to
handle drug-case proceeds in the state -- about $12 million in 2001. It's a
system with serious accountability problems.

State Rep. Burke Day recognized that last month after the Savannah Morning
News questioned him about the lack of drug-seizure data compiled by the
state. He said that, as he pondered the question, he realized the real
problem is with the money, not the data.

"Right now, there is no system for drug-related fines and forfeitures,"
said Day, a Tybee Island Republican and member of the House Public Safety
Committee. "There is no prescribed mechanism, no way for local governments
to report it even if they wanted to. You think that would have been picked
up a long time ago."

He introduced a resolution last week to create a committee that would draft
legislation to fix the problem.

Much of what the committee would look into is included in a report compiled
last year by state auditors at the request of the Budgetary Responsibility
Oversight Committee. It outlines many problems.

Example: While drug money should be used to help law enforcement, some of
it being used for Christmas parties, police cookouts, flowers and in one
case, to put on a golf tournament.

Lost in the wash

Authorities can seize money, real estate, cars, weapons and practically
anything of value linked to illegal drug sales or possession. If the
property is forfeited in federal court, it is tracked carefully by federal
agencies. But if it is forfeited in state court, that doesn't happen.

"The way it's handled now is extremely haphazard," said Rep. Ron Stephens,
R-Garden City, a co-sponsor of Day's bill. "Unless there is someone looking
over your shoulder, the money tends to get lost in the wash. We need to
have better accountability with forfeiture money."

State auditors visited 26 of the 229 local law-enforcement agencies that
received money from state forfeitures and found a wide range of
accountability problems:

a.. 85 percent of the agencies surveyed did not submit an annual report on
their cases to their local governing board, as required by law.

a.. 19 percent received money directly from drug forfeitures, without the
money passing through their boards, as required by law.

a.. 35 percent held seized money in their offices while cases were
processed rather than in interest-bearing accounts monitored by a third party.

a.. A governing board of one of the agencies was being investigated by the
GBI for "raiding" the forfeiture account to supplement its general fund to
pay for projects unrelated to law enforcement.

A list of the agencies surveyed was not available Wednesday. The Morning
News has filed an open-records request for the information.

State auditors have recommended changing the law to allow for at least
minimal tracking and monitoring of forfeiture cases, but so far that hasn't
happened.

"The absence of any tracking or monitoring of forfeiture cases processed
under state law has resulted in problems not being identified, which
precludes any corrective action," the report said.

Georgia officials have openly worried about the cost of implementing such a
tracking system. But one state -- Arkansas -- started its system with just
$20,000.

"Right now, we just don't know what we need to know," said Rep. Jay
Roberts, R-Oscilla, another bill co-sponsor. "I'm not saying all law
enforcement agencies are using this money improperly. I'm saying there is
the potential, and the people need to know how this is being spent."

DAs in the dark

While the law calls for district attorneys to keep drug forfeiture data for
all drug cases they prosecute, the auditors found 26 of the 45 circuits
that responded didn't do any tracking.

David Lock, chief assistant district attorney for Chatham County, said his
office does not keep track of the information. He said he thought the
county's finance department might; Finance Director Reese White could not
be reached for comment Wednesday.

Distributions from federal forfeiture cases are tracked by the Department
of Justice, the Treasury Department and the U.S. Marshals Service.

The Council of State Governments in 1985 recommended that property
forfeited to the state be transferred to the state attorney general, who
would distribute the property, and that the state create a forfeiture fund
in the state's treasury.

Other states have implemented the recommendation, or come up with their own
system, but not Georgia.

"The General Assembly should consider revising the law to provide for at
least minimal tracking and monitoring of state forfeiture cases," the
report said. "Based on systems in use in other states, it should be
possible to develop a low-cost system that would improve controls."

It suggests that the Attorney General's office or the Prosecuting
Attorneys' Council could be responsible for compiling the reports from
local law enforcement.

"These reports might be similar to the federal reports that local law
enforcement are already required to prepare."

The report said the Georgia Bureau of Investigation has no written policies
or procedures on the handling of state forfeiture cases. Nor could the GBI
explain why it had no receipts from state forfeiture cases.

In "Justice Betrayed," a four-part series that concluded Sunday, the
Morning News reported that the GBI doesn't keep track of drug seizure
information so it's impossible to know what kinds of drugs are being used
and trafficked or where. Drug arrest information collected by the agency
from local authorities is incomplete -- skewing federal Uniform Crime
Statistics and rendering the data useless for analysis.

"We need to get this information," Day said. "We need the facts and we
shouldn't be afraid of the truth. The truth is better than dealing with
la-la land. Accountability is one way to deal with this. The numbers don't
lie."