Forfeiture fund sustains drug prevention

East Lansing’s newest drug-detection dog was purchased using drug money last year.

As part of the city’s Drug Forfeiture Fund, which consists of money and property seized during drug-related crimes, money is accumulated and then spent on drug prevention, equipment and education for the East Lansing Police Department. It has been incorporated into the city’s budget for the past three fiscal years. Before that, the money was set aside but not recorded in the overall budget.

In the city’s 2009-10 budget, which was approved last week, department officials estimate they will need about $7,000 from drug forfeitures in order to maintain the department’s drug prevention programs. Setting aside the seized money has been practiced since the 1970s.

The fund was previously separate from the city’s budget, operating solely as a fund within the police department in which revenue was put in or taken out as money was made or needed. In 2007-08, the fund started at $43,913, and for 2009-10, it starts at $16,671.

In the city’s 2007-08 budget, city finance officials incorporated the Drug Forfeiture Fund for the first time.

“It makes it more transparent,” said Mike Birchmeier, budget and accounting administrator for East Lansing. “You can see exactly how money is coming and going out and what it’s being used for.”

Last fiscal year, drug forfeitures brought in $11,250 to the police department.

“It’s helped the city out by making it possible to buy the police equipment they need,” Birchmeier said.

In fiscal year 2007-08, the city received $1,126, Birchmeier said. Because of the range of forfeiture revenue, it’s difficult to know how much the city will receive and spend each year, he said.

“You can’t plan ahead for this sort of thing,” he said. “We don’t budget anything until the next fiscal year for the year previous.”

The city used to report its numbers directly to the state, which monitors drug forfeiture by county.

Public health code mandates that the city uses the money solely for drug forfeiture purposes. After the numbers are recorded, the city sends them to the state, which accumulates numbers from each county. Ingham County, in the fiscal year 2007, received $129,951 in drug forfeiture money.

“We are required every year by the Legislature to collect all that information on a yearly basis,” said Nancy Becker Bennett, manager of the law enforcement section in the state’s Office of Drug Control Policy.

Bennett estimates that in 2007, the state received almost $28 million from drug forfeiture money, but that it’s hard to predict how much money will be expected.

“It varies every year,” she said. “There is no way to tell how many forfeitures we will see in any given year.”