Rules keep task force funded

The agency will be able to retain its current staffing and programs.
By ED RUNYAN
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- Changes in rules that govern the way drug-seizure money can be used to help fund drug-enforcement agencies will allow a three-county narcotics task force to stay in business this year.
Ernest G. Cook III, chief deputy sheriff, said the 21/2-year-old Trumbull-Ashtabula-Geauga Law Enforcement Task Force requested only $16,666 from the county commissioners this week because of money now available through the seizure of cash, property and other items during narcotics investigations.
Funding from all three counties is necessary to provide matching funds for a $199,999 federal grant, but that grant is less than half of what the agency received last year, Cook said.
The amount requested of each county went down compared to 2005 because the amount needed for matching funds dropped, he said. Commissioners approved the $16,666 at their meeting Wednesday.
Last October, the funding picture for the agency looked bleak in the face of the reduced federal funding. At that time, task force director and sheriff's Sgt. Jeff Orr told commissioners the agency would need additional county money to offset the loss in federal grants. Orr asked the commissioners to increase county funding from $39,000 to $79,000 in 2006.
What changed
Cook said the regulations governing use of items seized during investigations are constantly changing and have changed since Orr's presentation in October. Now a larger amount of the seized assets can be used to provide matching funds for federal dollars. Other funding came from state and local governments, including a $150,000 state grant.
The changes will allow the agency to keep its current staffing of six deputies, two from each of the three counties. Cook said TAG's overall budget is lower in 2006, but the agency can maintain its programs "as is."
The agency maintains an office in an undisclosed location central to the three counties, Orr said.
Among the more unusual things the task force is trained and equipped to handle, Cook said, are biohazards. The officers can be mobilized in biohazard suits to investigate or secure crime scenes involving biohazards, he said.
In other business, the commissioners approved sewer and waterline extensions into the second phase of the Caldwell Woods housing development off State Road in Champion. The developer will pay for the utilities.
Gary Newbrough, county sanitary engineer, said the new phase will involve construction of 20 additional houses. The sewer line already serves State Road, Newbrough said.
Commissioners also appointed Jerry Henn to the county planning commission for two years to replace William Watson, who resigned effective Dec. 31; reappointed Ruth Jones as member of the county Children Services Board to a four-year-term; and amended the appointments of Atty. Daniel B. Letson and Rev. Alton I. Merrell Jr. to three additional years on the CSB.