Agency loses grant funding

The fate of the 22^nd Judicial Drug Task Force and its countywide war on drugs are unclear for the second time in a little more than a year.

County Commission Chairman Bill Godwin received a letter from the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs (ADECA) notifying the county it did not receive a grant for the DTF.

Godwin said the money went to fund the Dothan area drug task force and that the local DTF could have combined with them, but they declined.

In the last fiscal year, the DTF received a $50,000 grant, which was a number that had been steadily declining. The grant was for $265,000 in 2009; in 2010 and 2011 it decreased to $132,165; for 2012 it was $98,000; in 2013 it was $64,214; and $50,000 in 2014.

The county and the cities of Andalusia and Opp are already paying for salaries of four DTF agents.

According to the county’s records, $14,778 of the $50,000 was allotted for salaries in the drug task force, which was for the administrative assistant and paying the cost of the building and utilities and other office overhead, with a total of $46,031 budgeted.

The DTF board, which is chaired by Sheriff Dennis Meeks, will meet Wednesday at 11 a.m., but Meeks said the meeting is not open to the public.

Meeks said they are going to discuss how to proceed with keeping the DTF alive.

“I suspect we won’t have it chiseled out in stone by the end of the meeting,” Meeks said. “We knew anyway there was a possibility we may not have gotten it, but we felt good that we would get it, but we are certainly going to do everything we can do to keep the task force going.”

District Attorney Walt Merrell declined to comment until after Wednesday’s meeting.

“Until then I don’t have a comment,” he said.