THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, July 28, 1994 TAG: 9407280505
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY ANNE SAITA, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 58 lines
Area law enforcement officials are expected to meet next month with the secretary of the North Carolina Department of Crime Control and Public Safety to decide how to divide a $250,000 legislative appropriation to combat illegal drug trade.
State Sen. Marc Basnight, D-Dare, announced last Friday that the General Assembly approved a quarter-million-dollar Multijurisdictional Drug Task Force Fund in its expanded 1994-95 budget.
But it remains unclear exactly how that money will be spent.
``Secretary (Thurman) Hampton is planning to meet with people to find out what their needs are,'' Steve Jones, a spokesman for the state crime control department, said.
A specific date and place will likely be announced after next week, Jones said.
According to House Bill 1518 and Senate Bill 1505, the money is to be used as grants to multijurisdictional drug task forces serving 29 counties throughout eastern North Carolina.
Eligible counties in northeastern North Carolina include Beaufort, Bertie, Chowan, Edgecombe, Gates, Halifax, Hertford, Martin, Northampton, Pasquotank, Perquimans, Tyrrell and Washington.
Localities must match at least 25 percent of the grant, administered through the Governor's Crime Commission, a division of the state crime control department.
Among the likely recipients is the Roanoke-Chowan Narcotics Task Force, one of the only multicounty drug agencies still in existence in northeastern North Carolina.
The drug task force has a current operating budget of about $400,000 and six agents covering 17 towns and Bertie, Hertford, Northampton, Martin and Gates counties.
When its government funding this year began to dwindle, the task force received double the usual contributions from the localities it serves in order to remain open, said Bertie County Sheriff J. Wallace Perry.
If the General Assembly money is awarded only to existing agencies, ``then we're sitting pretty by staying in,'' Perry, who also is chairman of the task force's board of directors, said Tuesday.
Other regional drug task forces, including those based in Elizabeth City and Dare County, have disbanded because of federal funding cuts.
The Edenton-based Albemarle Narcotics Task Force is no longer in existence, according to a telephone recording at the agency's listed phone number.
No one at the Governor's Crime Commission or Department of Crime Control was able to report Wednesday how many regional drug task forces remain active.
Area drug task forces were created in 1989 in North Carolina as part of a federal Anti-Drug Abuse Act. Each agency assists local authorities in drug trafficking crimes. by CNB