Honorable John Whitmire, Chair, Senate Committee on Criminal Justice
FROM:
John S. O'Brien, Deputy Director, Legislative Budget Board
IN RE:
SB1125 by Hinojosa (Relating to drug task forces.), As Introduced
No significant fiscal implication to the State is anticipated.
The bill provides that any multijurisdictional drug task force that has not been awarded a grant from the Criminal Justice Division within the Governor’s Office in 2004 is abolished. Currently, there are 32 multijurisdictional drug task forces that received federal funding through the Criminal Justice Division within the Governor’s Office in 2004. Therefore, only multijurisdictional drug task forces that do not receive federal funding through the Criminal Justice Division would be abolished.
The bill provides that if a multijurisdicitional drug task force is involved in the seizure of contraband, the multijurisdicitional drug task force may only retain 50 percent of the disposition of proceeds from the forfeiture, and the remaining 50 percent is to be deposited in a substance abuse treatment account in the county treasury where the seizure was made.
The bill requires any multijurisdicitonal drug task force abolished by the bill to forfeit all remaining proceeds to the state treasury for deposit in the General Revenue Fund.
Local Government Impact
Implementation of Sections 1 and 3 of the bill would result in a negative fiscal impact to local governments that have multijurisdictional drug task forces that do not receive federal funding through the Criminal Justice Division. All funds from the abolished task force, regardless of source, would be forfeited to the state treasury for deposit in the General Revenue Fund. The dissolved task force would lose funds for personnel, equipment, and overtime costs. The loss of funds would depend on the size of the task force, the size of the budget for each task force, the amount of contraband seized, and the amount received from the sale of the contraband.
Section 2 of the bill would result in revenue losses to individual task forces, but a county substance abuse treatment account would gain some funds. The amount of funds would depend upon the amount of contraband seized in any given fiscal year and the amount received from the sale of the contraband.