Florida: Palm Beach County can’t use state grant for crime database
WEST PALM BECH — The Palm Beach County Criminal Justice Commission has lost a $100,000 annual state grant for a program that compares crimes and criminals.
However, it still will get the money from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement; it just has to spend it on something else.
Since the 2014-2015 budget year, FDLE has given money for the Palm Beach County-based Law Enforcement Exchange program (LEX). The database, founded in the 1990s, compares dates and times, methods of operation, descriptions of people or vehicles, and other aspects of both solved and unsolved crimes.
A detective could use it to share data with agencies in Palm Beach and 40 other Florida counties, Criminal Justice Commission Executive Director Kristina Henson said Feb. 27.
“He can see if there’s other similar things happening in the county. If there are, he can reach out to other detectives and they can work together,” Henson said.
The FDLE voted in November to cut the stipend. The Criminal Justice Commission appealed, but the FDLE said last month it would not change its mind.
FDLE has told the commission it believes a current program using outside vendors, and the statewide Florida Law Enforcement Exchange (FLEX) now under con- struction, make LEX redundant.
“With the general decline in grant funding over the years, and as good stewards of state and federal funding, our efforts have been toward assuring the greatest impact and outcomes with these programs and resources,” Petrina Herring, bureau chief of FDLE’s grants office, wrote the commission in a letter dated Feb. 14.
“Our system is very robust and has been up and running,” Henson said “The CJC has spent 20 years building this system, with over $1 million invested in just grant funds. I think the state system should complement our system. but until the state system comes on line I don’t think we can make a judgment about how to tweak LEX.”
FDLE agreed, because of the late appeal, to pay for the first six months of its 2016-2017 grant, Henson told commission mem- bers Feb. 27 at a half-day goals workshop held at the Palm Beach County Convention Center.
Most of the grant money pays the salary of executive director Ted Gonzalez, hired when the FDLE grants began. Henson said she will look for other county money, such as trust funds.
She said the commission has to find the best use for the $50,000 that it will get in mid-2017, but can’t spend on LEX. The money likely will go to the commission’s Frequent User System Engagement (FUSE) program, which looks to help for the homeless and those with behavioral problems in the Palm Beach County Jail.