By Pepper Fisher
PORT ANGELES — OPNET, our local drug task force on the Olympic Peninsula, is being defunded by state officials.
The funding, which comes from the U.S. Department of Justice in the form of the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant, (or Byrne-JAG) makes up a large portion of operations for several drug task forces, including OPNET in Clallam and Jefferson Counties.
For the past 30 years, the grant money, around $3 million per year, comes to our state and is distributed by the Washington Department of Commerce. OPNET’s cut of that is $180,000, about 75% of their operating costs. But OPNET just received their last check from Commerce, which is supposed to be enough to get them through June of next year. After that, there is no other source of funds to keep the task force operating.
Port Angeles Police Chief Brian Smith says that’s bad news for this community, especially while we’re in the middle of a fentanyl epidemic.
“Yeah, the timing isn’t helpful for us. And losing the ability to fund the operation, it puts us in a very difficult situation. And whether it’s being done on purpose or just by accident, it’s an example of defunding the police. Taking away the tools that allow us to operate. You know, without OPNET existing, we would be engaged in reactive policing when it comes to narcotics trafficking, violent crime associated with firearms. It would change how how it feels to live here, if we didn’t have OPNET.”
As it is, so much fentanyl and other drugs are making their way into our communities that Clallam County is on pace to set an all-time high for overdose deaths, as described by County Prosecutor Mark Nichols.
“As of last week, we’ve exceeded the entire number of fatal overdoses that we had all last calendar year. I think we’re going to wind up, probably in the mid-40s. And the hope is that we don’t hit or exceed 50 people who lose their life due to illicit drug use in this community. I mean, that’s really a crisis level epidemic problem that we need to be directing more attention to. And the drug task force is a huge part of that effort. I certainly support it. I’m a voting member of the OPNET Policy Board. But I’ll tell you, I’d be really be concerned as a community if we saw our drug task force fall by the wayside.”
So, if the Byrne-JAG funds won’t be going to drug task forces anymore, where is the state Dept. of Commerce proposing it go? That’s the question we put to Kate Kelly. She’s Commerce’s Director of Firearm Safety & Violence Prevention/Community Safety Unit. Kelly says a JAG funds committee at Commerce was required by the federal government to create a new strategic plan for distributing these monies in our state over the next five years. The upshot is this: Going forward, all of the JAG funds will be up for competitive bid from multiple agencies and organizations, and it appears the emphasis will be on supporting advocacy, drug recovery, and what Kelly called the symptoms of the fentanyl crisis.
“It really could be a spectrum of different organizations and local agencies, including tribal governments, and tribes and organizations that support tribal members. And those sorts of organizations and agencies have always been eligible to get JAG funds. But the problem was, the bulk of the funding, up to about 80% of the funding that we receive year after year, has been going to the task force’s. So, there just hasn’t been opportunity to use the funding in other ways. And so, what we’re trying to do is ease away from that.”
Clallam County Sheriff Brian King has a problem with that. He says defunding our state’s task forces means more of them will cease to exist. When King was the OPNET Commander in 2015, there were 22 task forces in Washington. Now there are 16.
“You know, most of these other agencies that they’re pulling into as far as eligibility goes, they have a plethora of different funding sources. And, you know, the task forces have traditionally, this is the only source of funding that is available to us to be able to do this. And, it’s just disheartening, especially post-Blake, when there’s been essentially no law governing simple possession of controlled substances. I mean, things are just getting out of hand. And I don’t know what happens if a task force like ours folds. It’s going to be ugly.”
Kate Kelly thinks the end of this funding for task forces could turn out to be a good thing if it produces for them a new, more reliable source of support.
“I mean, one of the things that I’ve thought about this, is just that this task force work is ongoing work. It’s year after year. It’s supporting the personnel and the equipment, kind of, do this work. And grant programs usually aren’t the best way to support ongoing operations. Usually, that’s through some other funding source that’s more reliable, and more predictable. Anyway, so it’s something to think about.”
The members are not on their own in this. They were able to air their concerns at a recent roundtable on the fentanyl crisis in Port Angeles hosted by US Senator Maria Cantwell. And US Congressman Derek Kilmer co-signed a letter from a bipartisan group of Washington’s congressional delegation that was sent to Gov. Inslee asking for a long term plan to fund these task forces.
Sheriff King says there’s another delegation working to keep these task forces going as well.
“The Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs, to which all the Chiefs and Sheriff’s are members of, so, we’re being proactive in saying, ‘Okay, if you’re not going to provide us our source of funding through the Byrne-JAG, which I think is a responsible use of those dollars, then we need sustained State funding for these task forces.” And you know, maybe we force the hand through legislation in order for that to occur. So, that is our hope if we are not successful in pushing back on the funding through Byrne-JAG.”
So, OPNET is funded, at best, through the middle of next year. What happens after that is anybody’s guess. We’ll keep you posted.
(Photo: Clallam County Sheriff Brian King)