State legislators are threatening to withhold $30,000 in federal and state crime prevention grants for fiscal 2000 if a Taneytown police report on serious crimes fails to reach the House Appropriations Committee by July.
Carroll is one of four Maryland counties facing loss of the U.S. Justice Department and state grants, which are administered by the Governor's Office of Crime Control and Prevention, according to a report from the Subcommittee on Public Safety and Administration to the House Committee on Appropriations.
Taneytown is Carroll's designated HotSpot, making it eligible for the federal and state grants that are used to fund youth prevention programs, community policing initiatives and addictions programs. The programs are aimed at reducing serious crimes such as assault, robbery and rape.
Budget language recently added to the state's general fund appropriation states: " funds for HotSpot grants in Carroll, Cecil, Queen [Anne's] and St. Mary's counties shall be contingent upon receipt of a report of performance of the existing HotSpot program for fiscal 1998."
An ac- companying explanation said the four counties did not submit a satisfactory report on serious crime statistics for fiscal 1998.
Taneytown and Carroll County authorities denied yesterday any negligence in submitting those statistics in a timely fashion.
Taneytown Police Lt. Gregory Woelfel said the statistics were provided to the Carroll County Department of Citizens Services and Housing, which coordinates grant programs between state and local agencies.
The 1998 crime statistics were submitted and apparently were lost at the state level, he said. Copies were promptly supplied, Woelfel said.
Jolene Sullivan, county director of citizens services, said copies of each statistical report were submitted quarterly to the Governor's Office of Crime Control and Prevention since the HotSpot program was initiated two years ago.
"We have not heard anything about this from the governor's office," Sullivan said. "We know all of the information was sent to them, and we can certainly provide copies."
Maryland was the first state tapped for the federal HotSpot grants, and Taneytown was designated to receive a portion of more than $3.5 million to be funneled into the state over three years.
Despite active promotion by the U.S. Justice Department, communities such as Taneytown were reluctant to promote themselves as deserving of HotSpot crime prevention money, fearing such a designation would hurt development and home sales.
W. Benjamin Brown, a former Carroll commissioner, pushed for Taneytown to receive the grant, noting the rising number of calls for service in the city of 5,000.
Woelfel said Taneytown police handled about 5,500 calls in 1996. That figure was the basis for Taneytown's receiving the original HotSpot grant for fiscal 1998.
Taneytown's calls for police service dropped to 4,280 last year, but 358 arrests were an all-time high.
In part, the declining calls for service could be attributed to Taneytown's eight-member police force losing two officers who left to work elsewhere, Woelfel said. State police answered a number of calls for service that otherwise might have been handled by his agency, he said.
Part of the problem with the missing report might be because the computer used by Taneytown police cannot download data to a floppy disk, so a paper printout was sent to the state, he said.
Another part of the problem, Woelfel said, could be that the police computer software allows him to list each crime, its date and location, but is not programmed to sort them by severity of crime.
"We could do that manually, but we don't have the personnel or the time," he said.
In a report to the General Assembly, the Governor's Office of Crime Control and Prevention said, "Carroll County utilizes a very old record management system. Although all of the necessary data is entered into the system, the Department is unable to generate reports covering only the HotSpot area."
The crime control report noted that technical assistance to generate the necessary data is being provided by the University of Maryland's department of criminology and criminal justice.
About $25,000 of the $30,000 granted to Carroll County in fiscal 1999, the second year of the HotSpot program, went to a Youth Prevention after-school program at Northwest Middle School in Taneytown, said Mary Scholz of the county Department of Citizens Services and Housing.
The General Assembly uses the statistical data to determine if the program is beneficial and helping to lower serious crime, said Margaret T. Burns, a spokeswoman for the governor's crime control office.
"Statistical protocol ensures the integrity of the program," she said. "We certainly want to work with every local jurisdiction to move forward."
Pub Date: 3/17/99