Cody Jones and I attended one of these emergency funding meetings for the Etowah County DEU on behalf of Rep. Ford a couple of years ago. What I discovered in that meeting was this: 1) the Etowah DEU is an extremely effective tool for crime reduction in Etowah County that we should all be grateful for and supportive of, 2) some of or legislators have no clue where/how the 1 cent sales tax originated and/or is spent in our community, 3) revenue losses to the Etowah DEU is in direct correlation with ALGOP belt tightening budget policies. The DEU yearly budget has gone from $803,000 in 2011 to $665,000 for the current fiscal year. Most of the decline has been in ADECA funding, going from $225,000 to $72,000 over that same period. Those cuts have reduced the units staff by 15% and cut operational costs by 20%. The units vehicle fleet also needs maintenance. ADECA (a state-funded agency) spokesman Jim Plott said it best himself concerning ADECA funding through Montgomerys current budgeting policies: “As budgets get tighter, cuts have to be made and often ADECA has to play the hand it has been dealt. We do not want to cut any program, but we are given no choice and when we do have to cut we want to do it as fairly as possible.” Now, when their own policies have pushed our local Drug Enforcement Unit against the wall, our GOP legislators have been leading the discussions of raiding our local community development tax dollars (particularly those that fund programs at Gadsden State to keep kids off the streets) so they can make up the shortfall and cuts that they themselves have sent down from the state. This, my friends, is smoke-and-mirror politics at its finest.
Posted on: Tue, 02 Dec 2014 02:43:07 +0000
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