A federal grant program that has funded the county’s drug team
for the past 14 years and has allowed the Hollister Police
Department to buy the latest in weapons technology could vanish for
good if some of the president’s proposed budget cuts are
approved.
Hollister – A federal grant program that has funded the county’s drug team for the past 14 years and has allowed the Hollister Police Department to buy the latest in weapons technology could vanish for good if some of the president’s proposed budget cuts are approved.
The cuts would result in the loss of two positions within the county’s drug unit and even fewer amenities for an already short-staffed and cash-strapped police department.
President George Bush’s proposed budget would gut the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program by 87 percent – a program that has contributed more than $1.1 billion to local California law enforcement organizations since its inception in 1994.
Included in COPS funds is money allocated to the state through the Edward Byrne memorial grant program – a program in memory of a fallen New York police officer that partially funds the county’s Unified Narcotics Enforcement Team, said Sheriff Curtis Hill. UNET is made up of San Benito County sheriff’s deputies and probation officers, California Highway Patrol officers and those from the Hollister, Morgan Hill and Gilroy police departments.
Specially-trained UNET agents focus on drug activity in the area, such as locating and destroying marijuana gardens grown in remote areas of the county by the Mexican mafia. Officers found and destroyed 10 tons of marijuana in San Benito County in the 2004 growing season alone, according to officials.
Bush’s proposed cuts would shave nearly $180,000 from UNET’s budget, Hill said. Without that money, the narcotics team would lose the use of their facility and two full-time positions, including the secretary and a probation officer, Hill said. To make up for that, local governments would have to dip into their general funds to pick up the slack, he said.
“If we can’t get the money somewhere we’ll have to find it in another pot,” Hill said. “The president has made cuts every year he’s been in office and every year we’ve been able to keep going. But this year sounds particularly ominous.”
The Hollister Police Department has received about $60,000 for the past two years in the form of state-allocated local law enforcement block grants through the COPS program, which recently bought 15 Tasers and holsters for every officer, said Police Chief Jeff Miller. In 2003, the department received about $40,000 through the grant, which was cut in half last year because of budget cuts, Miller said.
Miller had planned to apply for that grant again this year to finish buying Tasers for every sworn officer so they don’t have to hand the stun-guns back and forth between shifts, he said. The additional 17 Tasers would set the department back about $15,000, which it can’t afford without the grant, Miller said.
While Miller wasn’t certain the grant money would disappear completely if the president’s cuts are approved, any additional cuts could leave a negligible amount of money left over to work with.
Besides Bush’s cuts, local law enforcement’s pocket is also being picked by Governor Schwarzenegger, who proposed in his budget to take away $500,000 in funding to rural sheriff’s departments, along with a sizable chunk to the state probation department’s juvenile justice program.
“There’s some definite pain involved for law enforcement when these funds are cut,” Miller said. “Money is being shifted to Homeland Security, which is necessary, but at times Washington and Sacramento forget the first line of homeland security is local law enforcement. We’re the ones out there day to day protecting our community.”
Hollister City Councilman Brad Pike said any cuts to local law enforcement have a devastating effect in tough economic times, and he wants to make it his mission to increase the staffing levels for both the police and fire departments.
To help that process along, Pike believes the public needs to be better informed about the budgetary crises law enforcement is facing.
“People dial 911 and their expectations are they’ll have whatever service they need show up. That’s not the case,” Pike said. “You need to be in the world to understand it, but that doesn’t mean people can’t be educated to it. It seems obvious, but we have to present the obvious back to the public because they forget sometimes. We need to make it so this place is strong.”
While both the state police chief and sheriff’s associations will be fighting to hang on to the funding they say they so desperately need, Miller echoed Pike’s sentiments in that the voice of the many is louder than the voice of the few.
“If people are so inclined they should let their elected representatives know how they feel about public safety if they’re concerned,” he said. “From the local level all the way up to the national level.”
Erin Musgrave covers public safety for the Free Lance. Reach her at 637-5566, ext. 336 or [email protected]
