Oct. 8 Daily News editorial

Word that Cowlitz County’s Drug Court won’t be getting a hoped-for federal grant next month couldn’t have come at a worse time. This is not a year when that federal money can be easily replaced by shifting funds from other areas. The long recession has taken a heavy toll on county revenues, forcing deep, across-the-board budget cuts.

If county commissioners have few budget options that would help out Drug Court, the judges have fewer still. Drug Court is one of only a handful of the court system’s discretionary programs that could be cut without violating state mandates. Moreover, the court system already is stretched thin — too thin, according to the Washington Administrative Office of the Courts (WAOC). A WAOC report released last month said the county’s Superior Court was perilously underfunded.

Still, Drug court has a couple things in its favor: No one wants to see the program shut down, and the amount of funding it needs to continue operating is relatively small.

County Commissioners on Tuesday pretty well committed themselves to funding Drug Court through the remainder of the calendar year. Some $15,000 is needed to fund the program through December, according to Daily News reporter Barbara LaBoe. Commissioners would have to come up with about half that amount from the county’s general fund. The rest of the cost would be covered by the fees Drug Court participants pay and grants.

Budgeting for the program in 2010 and 2011 will be a much bigger challenge. The recovery is expected to gain some steam next year, but county revenue projections probably will remain down for at least a year or two more. Finding the some $60,000 needed to fund Drug Court each year in the absence of federal support would mean asking still more sacrifice from other programs.

Commissioners can make no guarantees. But, to their credit, they’ve indicated a willingness to make every effort to ensure that Drug Court continues operating at some level. “As a priority in this office,” Commissioner Axel Swanson said Tuesday, “it rises very much to the top.”

That’s as it should be. Drug Court is an important part of local law enforcement’s arsenal in battling this community relative high rates of drug abuse and related crime. The program’s emphasis on treating and rehabilitating nonviolent drug offenders, as opposed to merely warehousing them in jail or prison for a period of time, is a demonstrated success.

Drug Court participants who stay clean, abide by the program’s strict rules and enter treatment can avoid a felony conviction and become productive members of the community. Most of the program’s graduates stay on the straight and narrow. A 2004 evaluation of the county’s Drug Court by University of Portland researchers found that the majority of graduates were felony-arrest free after several years. Conversely, offenders who qualify for Drug Court but do not participate are five times more likely to reoffend than those who do participate.

The lower recidivism rate for Drug Court graduates translates into a considerable savings for county taxpayers. Sending an offender through Drug Court costs roughly one-tenth what it costs to jail someone for an equal period of time. Taxpayers save $2.45 for every dollar invested in Drug Court, according to the Washington State Institute for Public Policy. This program easily merits the high priority county officials have assigned it.