Interlocal agreement approved

PATEROS – Following a revision of some wording in the annual agreement, Pateros City Council members, at their regular monthly meeting March 18, approved the 2019 Interlocal Agreement with Okanogan County for law enforcement services for the year ahead. A member of the North Central Washington Narcotics Task Force (NCWNTF) along with Okanogan County Sheriff Tony Hawley and Undersheriff Aaron Culp attended the council’s regular monthly meeting last Monday, March 18, to update members on work the group is doing.

The NCWNTF member, who requested anonymity, told council members that federal grant funding that helps support the drug task forces is being held up at the federal level owing to a lawsuit dealing with immigration and sanctuary city issues in several states.

“The federal government and the state government basically are bickering,” the NTR source later told The Quad. “There were some questions specifically put on the federal application for the grant issued to all task forces that had to do with immigration.”

Some of the questions concerned allowing immigration enforcement in their jurisdictions.

“We in Okanogan County at least are in compliance with all those questions,” the NRF source said and added “other agencies on the west side of the state took offense to and did not want to answer.”

Congress approved $254 million for the 2017 fiscal year but those funds have yet to be disbursed and the shortfall is hitting small community drug task forces the hardest. Each task force receives the same amount so counties with large law enforcement budgets like King, Pierce, Snohomish, and Spokane barely notice the difference, but smaller units feel the pinch, in some cases terminally.

“We have already lost at least one and maybe two task forces in the state that have already collapsed,” the NTF source said, citing the lack of grant funding.

Fortunately, the Okanogan County Sheriff’s Office planned ahead and prepared for such a contingency.

“We have a reserve,” said the NTF source. “We’ve been financially smart in the meantime and we have a reserve that will take us out for a couple of years now.”

The NCWNTF commanded by Undersheriff Culp is a multi-jurisdictional group of which the Okanogan County Sheriff's Office is the parent agency. It is funded through an annual Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant and contributions from communities like Pateros that currently ponies up $2,500 a year. There are currently about 20 Brynes Grant Task Forces in the State of Washington.

While the delay in federal funding has a minor effect on large city task forces, “we only get $35,000 from all the agencies in Okanogan and Ferry counties,” the NTF source said.

Adding to the expense, the NCWNTF goes wherever the drug trail leads, even if it involves communities that do not participate in funding the unit. That can be statewide as when the NCWCTF served two search warrants last year in the city of Kent in south King County.

“We do a lot of work in Bridgeport even though they don’t contribute to our task force,” said the NTF source.  “We have to because a good portion of our drugs are coming out of Bridgeport.”

The NCWNTF staff “includes one National Guard employee, three Task force detectives and other Okanogan County Law Enforcement personnel as local agency budgets allow,” according to a statement on the website okanogansheriff.org/ncwntf. “The task force has a full-time detective from the U.S. Border Patrol, a full-time detective from the Ferry County Sheriff’s Office and a full-time sergeant from the Okanogan County Sheriff’s Office.”

Lack of manpower is the other critical ingredient of the local task force staffing.

“Even when we are getting the grant, we’ve been having an issue with manpower,” said the NTF source, “Just getting these other agencies, Brewster, Omak, Oroville to contribute full time officers to the task force is a big burden.”

Over the past few years cocaine has been the primary focus of the NCWNTF with methamphetamine a close second.

The NCWNTF is governed by a board comprised of “the Sheriffs of Okanogan and Ferry Counties and all the Police Chiefs in both counties,” notes the website. “This board meets every other month for financial planning and to discuss the direction of the task force.”