The Yavapai County Board of Supervisors accepted a $626,000 state grant from the Arizona Department of Public Safety to expand the capabilities of the antidrug Partners Against Narcotics Trafficking task force during its meeting on Wednesday, June 7.
The funds are being reallocated from the Drug Interdiction Fund, formerly known as the Border Strike Force Fund.
Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs claimed the strike force established in 2015 was not meeting its goals of enhancing public safety and called for the force’s $30 million budget to be repurposed into border Communities. SB 1720, a general appropriations bill passed on May 11, allocated $17.8 billion in state funding to health care, housing and other areas. It included $17.145 million for border drug interdiction, $12.232 million for local border support and $3 million for fentanyl prosecution. Yavapai County will receive $337,500 for search and rescue equipment and $22,600 for juvenile detention. Yavapai College will also receive $4 million.
Funding intended for local border support may be used by municipalities and counties to deal with border-related crime, suspect detention and related equipment needed to carry out those duties. SB 1720 also requires that DPS submit an expenditure plan for local border support to the legislature and governor’s office on or before Friday, Sept. 1.
Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Kristin Greene stated that the fund’s name change has not affected YCSO operations: “Regardless of the name of the fund we are still using it for the purposes for which it should be used.” This year ’s grant represents a decrease from 2022, when PANT received $777,383 in Border Strike Force funds.
The administrative change to the fund’s name followed several months of allegations by Republican legislators that scrapping the Border Strike Force would weaken security.
“Crimes related to the border do not stay at the border,” Yavapai County Sheriff David Rhodes, a Republican, stated in a press release. “We need the ability to focus resources specifically to human and drug smuggling, sex trafficking and cartel-related crimes that originate at the border. The funding from this grant is vital to our agency in meeting those needs, so we thank the legislature and Gov. Hobbs for continuing to make these grants available.”
DPS will be reimbursing YCSO 75% percent of payroll expenses for two deputies and two sergeants at a cost of $450,000. The role of these employees is expanding PANT to deal with border-related crime and drug interdiction. The department will also be reimbursed $175,949.09 for one K-9 vehicle, four vehicle-mounted license plate readers and a mobile X-ray device to assist those efforts.
The plate readers will be purchased from Vigilant Solutions for $71,381, and the mobile X-ray device will be supplied by Safeware at a cost of $62,405. Both are intended for use by PANT, which typically operates undercover vehicles.
“The license plate readers are important to what we do because we have hot lists of vehicles that are stolen or reported to be involved in serious felony investigations attached to warrants,” Sgt. John Johnson said.
Greene said that incidents such as the seizure of 1 million fentanyl pills last year by YCSO demonstrated the effects of border crime on Yavapai County.
