Drop in population costs state federal drug money

Iowa’s drop in population will cost the state around 100-thousand dollars in money that goes to efforts to fight drugs. The director of the Office of Drug Control Policy, Marvin Van Haaften, says the local law enforcement assistance grant is based on a state’s population. He says Iowa will still get five-point-five million dollars. He says there’s 26 purpose areas, so the grant can be used for a variety of things. He says the bulk of the grant will help fund drug task forces made up of local officers. Van Haaften says the money will also fund drug treatment programs and help with record keeping.Some of the money will go to the Department of Public Safety to for criminal history record improvement and to integrate criminal justice information systems. Van Haaften says the state received about five-point-six million dollars last year and it’s likely the decrease in funds will be spread across all agencies that are awarded money. He says they go through an extensive review process of the grant requests for the money and base it on the success of the programs. The federal grant is named the Edward Byrne Memorial grant in honor of a New York police officer who was killed by drug dealers.