Sheriff Nicholson Addresses the Effect of Budget Cuts on Public Safety and Meth Labs

We have and will continue to aggressively take downs meth labs and meth traffickers in Gilmer County. After the amended 2011 budget, where the Sheriff cut (once again) $175,874 and $57,791 from the detention center, FYN wanted to see how these changes would effect the citizens of Gilmer. Would the budget effect public safety?

FYN sent Sheriff Nicholson a list of questions. Below is his response:

At the last Gilmer county Tea Party meeting Attorney General Sam Olens spoke and was asked would there be more resources for methamphetamine enforcement to which he replied, “DEA no longer has money to help law enforcement to clean meth labs up, which is a real issue because if you have a meth lab in your community you need to be looking at your Mayor, City Council or your County Commissioners to help clean up”.
1. Could you please comment on this statement the AG made?
2. What is the cost of cleaning up a meth lab?
3. How many did you clean up last year? At what cost?
4. Who covered the cost of the clean up?
5. How will you pay for future meth lab clean up?
6. Will the budget affect your ability or approach to enforce the drug laws concerning methamphetamines?
7. Will budget cuts affect public safety?

Sherriff Nicholson:
The Attorney General, Sam Olens, is correct. DEA is no longer footing the bill for meth lab clean up. The federal and state government has been cutting funding for many programs in the last couple of years. A lot of these costs have had to be picked up by the local governments. Meth lab clean up is the most current example.

The cost of cleaning up a meth lab varies, depending on the “size” of the lab. Ingredients for manufacturing meth in their original form are not subject to stringent laws for hazardous materials. However, once they are mixed, they fall into the category of hazardous material and become costly to dispose. For example, the most recent meth lab in Gilmer County would have cost in the neighborhood of $1,500 for the “clean up.” A larger, more traditional type of lab might run upwards of $10,000 for clean up.

In the last couple of years, meth labs have been few and far between in north Georgia. The largest source of meth is most definitely still the pipeline from Mexico to Atlanta. However, since the end of 2010, Gilmer, Fannin, and Pickens have seen an increase in reported meth labs. We had one in December 2010 and another in January 2011 in Gilmer County. These labs didn’t cost Gilmer County anything for clean up as DEA has just started not covering the cost. So as of April 1, 2011, any meth labs takedowns by local governments will be funded by the local government. I sit on the Zell Miller Mtn Parkway Drug Task Force control board, which consists of Gilmer, Fannin and Pickens counties. At our March meeting, we addressed this issue and voted that as the Task Force is partially funded by the local governments, each county would respectively cover the cost of their cleanups. With the budgets cuts I have had to make in the Sheriff’s Office, it is gonna be extremely difficult to cover this. However, I view it as the same as any other major event or catastrophe. You can’t plan or budget for it. You just have to do the best you can and deal with them as they come. Law enforcement is not designed to be a money maker, and if you have good law enforcement, it’s not going to be cheap.

The Gilmer County Sheriff’s Office nor the ZMMPDTF will NOT let the issue of these funding cuts affect our approach to the enforcement of the meth laws. We have and will continue to aggressively take downs meth labs and meth traffickers in Gilmer County. The budget cuts HAVE affected the services that the Sheriff’s Office provides to the citizens of Gilmer County. For example, we no longer have the man power to supervise inmate work details, picking up trash on the highways. However, we will NOT let the cuts affect the public safety of the citizens of Gilmer County. The cuts that we have made have been primarily in the administration areas of the department.