THE ANATOMY OF A GRANT: WEED AND SEED HELPS FIGHT CRIME IN CITIES (SECOND IN A SERIES)

With or without federal Weed and Seed program funding, police still would be cracking down on illegal activities in targeted neighborhoods of Southeast Missouri communities.

A federal grant doesn't change that, even if the grant is nearly three-quarters of a million dollars.

What it does, however, is offer local law enforcement officers a better chance at coordinating efforts and getting equipment needed to curb crime, said Larry Ferrell, assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri.

The $750,000 Weed and Seed grant, along with advice from neighborhood residents, seems to be having an effect on violent crimes in targeted neighborhoods of Cape Girardeau, Caruthersville, Charleston, Poplar Bluff and Sikeston.

"This isn't the federal government coming in and telling people what they need," said Ron Skaggs, interim director for Southeast Missouri Weed and Seed Inc. "Without local people, nothing would work," he said.

Residents know the problems in their neighborhoods and have suggestions for solutions. Without those suggestions and their input, Weed and Seed wouldn't work. In fact, it wouldn't even have started.

Weed and Seed began as an idea among several communities and groups seeking to stop violence, crime and drug traffic in their hometowns. Representatives met nearly four years ago to talk about what could be done, and the idea for a regional program began.

Ferrell was asked to serve as a chairman for the group, and he devised the plan for a regional concept of the federal Operation Weed and Seed program for Missouri's Bootheel.

SEMO Weed and Seed Inc., a non-profit organization, oversees the grant from the U.S. Department of Justice aimed at "weeding" out crimes and "seeding" targeted neighborhoods with other resources. The regional board is the first effort at incorporating five cities into a Weed and Seed designation. Previously, individual cities had to apply.

In 1995, Sikeston became the first city in Southeast Missouri to get a Weed and Seed designation. It has operated on a separate grant for the past two years. Its budget is $125,000.

By designating a region as part of the Weed and Seed program, it not only offered a better chance for obtaining federal recognition, but it allowed law enforcement officials in the five cities to coordinate their efforts, Ferrell said.

"We picked out the areas with the greatest similarities in drug trafficking," he said. Much of the criminal activity wasn't just limited to a single city, he said.

By agreeing to participate in the program, each city also contributed a $10,000 match to the grant, which creates an $800,000 account devoted to cutting crime and offering community resources.

But how should the $800,000 be spent?

Before any federal money was designated to reach Southeast Missouri, each cooperating city had to submit a budget detailing how they planned to spend the money. The proposed budgets include information about personnel, equipment and seeding resources.

Cape Girardeau was the last city to join the regional effort in 1998 but requested the largest amount of money, $132,800, for its project. Caruthersville requested the least at $98,075. Other grant amounts: Poplar Bluff, $115,685, and Charleston, $124,740.

Although each city has varying budgets, the greatest portion of money in each is devoted to personnel costs. Of the overall regional budget, nearly 37 percent, or $293,926, is devoted to personnel costs.

That figure includes salaries for a regional director and assistant as well as seeding coordinators in each city, and benefit packages or employment taxes and overtime pay for officers, including those of the Missouri Highway Patrol, Bootheel Drug Task Force and SEMO Drug Task Force.

The next largest category of expenses is earmarked for safe haven activities, youth mentoring programs and an effort to share intelligence information about gangs and drug trafficking among area agencies.

Safe havens are areas designed to offer community resources to the targeted neighborhoods. That can include churches or civic centers offering after-school programs for children living in targeted areas, job training, computer access and courses, or even sports leagues and tutoring programs.

This summer safe havens in Cape Girardeau are offering a free lunch program to children living in the neighborhoods.

Isaac Egbuka, 10, and his brother, Joshua, 8, often eat lunch at the New Horizon Missionary Baptist Church in Cape Girardeau. The church serves lunches from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. to about 20 children each weekday. Their mother, Regina Egbuka, heard about the lunch program through the local Weed and Seed office. Sometimes their younger sister, Kimberly, 5, also eats lunch at the church.

Getting to eat lunch away from home with friends is sort of a treat, Isaac said. His favorite meal so far has been peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Finding foods that children like and will eat plenty of is probably the hardest part of planning menus, said Gwyndle McGee, who coordinates the program at the church.

"We've substituted in categories to see what they eat more of," she said. The menus are planned by the Missouri Department of Health so that the children are eating something from each of the five food groups.

Having a hot lunch during the summertime might help get some children off the street, maybe even prevent them from trying to steal food or candy from a store when they are hungry, McGee said.

To help the neighborhoods offer programs for youths, safe havens received $190,950 of the budgeted amount regionally, or 23 percent of the Weed and Seed funding. Another $25,000 was earmarked for job mentoring programs.

Intelligence networking allows police to track drug dealers who leave one area or city and move to another, as well as show where drugs come from. Tracking methamphetamine is also a concern since narcotics officers in the area spend about 90 percent of their time dealing with labs and arrests. The regional budget includes $75,000 for intelligence networks and methamphetamine observation.

About 11 percent of the regional budget buys equipment like police radios, uniforms, computers, pinhole cameras and recorders. The total amount budgeted is $92,174.

But creating a budget doesn't mean that all the money has been spent. About six months into the year, the regional Weed and Seed board had spent about 20 percent of its budget.

Each community has been tailoring its budget to fit individual needs, said Rick Hetzel, Cape Girardeau police chief and regional board president. "In the past few months, we've made tremendous progress," he said.

The board approved nearly $40,000 in mini-grants for the cities in May. They included a $17,000 grant to YEA, a youth program that offers educational adventures.

Each local grant program, after receiving approval of the regional board, receives a letter stating that it must meet federal auditing requirements.

Components are in place to evaluate each program and make sure that the money is being spent properly, Hetzel said. An accounting firm checks budget figures, and a university team is evaluating the grant programs to make sure they are reaching their goals.

Putting checks and balances in place has been a little tricky because the board has a regional focus, not just a local one. "We've had some bumps in the road and are still grappling with policy, but I think the program has served as a model," Hetzel said.

Nearly everyone involved with the regional Weed and Seed effort calls it a success. But measuring success is difficult, especially within its first funding cycle. Another grant application will be submitted for the 2000 fiscal year so the regional program can continue.

Most of the success is not as much statistical as it is anecdotal, Skaggs said. "It's not something you put a measuring stick to."

But you can see results, said Skaggs.

"Maybe neighbors feel safer because they see less street-corner drug dealers," he said. Or children involved in the seeding programs after school might have less of a propensity to turn to crime when they get older, Skaggs said.

Other results come from inter-agency communication. Studies conducted by the Justice Department show that federal, state and local law enforcement agencies communicate more when they are involved in Weed and Seed programs, Skaggs said.

Studies in larger cities also showed that targeted neighborhoods saw crime rates decline more or increase less than rates in other cities because of Weed and Seed efforts, he said.

"It's like they feel a little more hopeful," he said.

That hope gives local law enforcement officials hope that the program is working. Weed and Seed in Southeast Missouri looks strong, and the efforts are successful and continuing, Ferrell said. "I see no reason that it wouldn't continue to grow even bigger."