Local law enforcement and victim advocate groups voiced concerns Monday over President Bush's 2006 budget proposals eliminating programs considered to be inefficient. The White House has categorized the targeted programs as nonperforming in preventing or fighting crime.

A group of local law enforcement and victim advocate groups met Monday with Rep. Earl Pomeroy, D-N.D., to discuss the impact of the cuts.

Steep cuts are being made in the rural areas, places with low population and low levels of violent crimes, Pomeroy said.

"The budget cuts are unfortunate judgments by the White House that is trying to prioritize Homeland Security funding. They try to assess terrorist attacks in urban areas, but that has nothing to do with problems day in and day out in rural areas," Pomeroy said.

The White House budget proposal would eliminate the Justice Assistance Grants, which include the Byrne Formula Grant that provided $629 million in 2005. The budget also seeks to cut Community Oriented Policing Service, or COPS, to $22 million, down $740 million from two years ago.

Law enforcement officials attending the meeting didn't cite specific amounts of funds they would lose to the cuts.

"The better job we do (to lower crime) the more penalized we are," said Deborah Ness, Bismarck police chief. "The low population and low crime equation keeps dollars away from us."

Right now the Byrne grant funds the multijurisdictional drug task force. The task force is able to draw the help of other law enforcement agencies to solve crimes faster. All the law enforcement information is pooled into one source in case one officer is working on a case in one jurisdiction and another officer receives a tip. They are able to communicate through the same system, said Maj. Nick Sevart of the Burleigh County Sheriff's Department.

Law enforcement agencies also receive funding from the Local Law Enforcement Block Grant to use toward community education and community policing. The grant is used in early intervention methods to rural youth and to connect with rural communities in educating them on drug and crime prevention.

"Early intervention is very beneficial because we can deal with youth issues and educate them to make good decisions instead of dealing with them as adults that have made bad decisions," Sevart said. "We are not going to quit doing this once there is no more grant money, but the lack of funding is going to cost the taxpayers a lot more to have to build bigger jails and treatment centers."

The budget cuts will create ripple effects that go beyond the police departments. Richard Riha, Burleigh County state's attorney, said that even though his department does not receive any of the grant, officers using grant money are able to build stronger cases. When they are able to gather strong evidence it cuts down on court time and trial time.

Bonnie Palecek, director of the North Dakota Council of Abused Women's Services, a coalition of about 20 different organizations, elaborated further on the ripple effect theory.

"These funds are a part of a very large puzzle," Palecek said. "The cut in funding would erode an infrastructure that we have spent many years to build up. Our ability to provide these types of services is hanging by thread."

Also present at the meeting was Jenell Olson from the McLean Family Resource Center. Olson said the resource center staff have to go out to the victims in McLean County. The victims often don't have a driver's license or a car, or if they do have a car, they don't have money for gas. The staff goes to the victim because it's the only way for them to get help.

"If we start something, we want to be able to go forward with it, but if the funding is cut we can't continue to grow," Olson said.

Pomeroy said the cuts are driven by a fiscal policy that does not pay attention to who is getting hurt.

He said the nation is dealing with a deficit that is wildly out of balance.

Due to the proposed federal cuts, Pomeroy is placing more pressure on the North Dakota Legislature to increase funding to the programs affected.

"The state shouldn't have reduced funding to be subsidized by the federal government," Pomeroy said. "The state is going to have to deal with this because it can't be left to the locals."

(Reach reporter Kayla Cogdill at 250-2851 or kaylacogdill@bismarck-tribune.net.)