Miscellaneous

Earmarkable

By Anne Skove, Esq.

Earmarks are like noisy children -- we talk about how awful they are, but only if they belong to someone else. Of our own we say "...and s/he's never even taken a music lesson!" That's what parents say about their own children. It's what advocates do for their own constituents.

Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont scored or secured (depending on your view) over $1.2 million in federal grant monies for his state. If that seems steep, it's actually a decrease from past years.

The Byrne Justice Assistance Grant will support drug interdiction and treatment by helping to pay police officer time spent working on a task force, chemists in the state forensic lab, state and county law enforcement, an additional drug prosecutor, "civilian drug intelligence analyst" (whatever that is), a business administrator, and programming in the state court administrator's office. It does not appear that public defenders are covered here, although with more prosecutors and law enforcement, their workload is sure to rise.

See Leahy: Drug Focus Helped Secure $1.2M for Vt, Brent Curtis, Rutland Herald (October 8, 2008) (link is to Times Argus).

See also the OJP solicitations page (at this time there are no open BJA solicitations).

Full post as published by court-o-rama.org on October 12, 2008 (boomark / email).