The City of Kenai officially accepted and appropriated the asset forfeiture sharing funds for the Kenai Police Department. The purpose will be to purchase new law enforcement equipment. Specifically, the money goes into the city’s “General Fund – Police Small Tools” account.
The total amount to be appropriated was $4,035 which came from a November 2020 asset forfeiture. The funds were came from a sharing fund from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
Kenai Police Chief Dave Ross spoke about how the shared funds are typically distributed when federal officials are involved in cases on the Kenai: “It really depends. The DEA determines that on federal cases, so the money goes there, then the state and us, and we kinda tell what we did in the particular case. Then, they determine, based on our involvement, the percentages [of money to be shared]. So, it varies from case to case. The feds keep their part, the state gets part, and we get part, typically. It’s not uncommon that some cases are federally prosecuted in the drug environment [in Alaska]. Some cross over borders, cross over towns, cross over cities, and they’re prosecuted in federal courts, so that’s when there’s a task force in Alaska. They include the DEA, the state, and we participate commonly. Those task forces usually take the most complicated drug-ring type cases, and then they make a decision on whether to prosecute it in the state or with the federal prosecutor.”
Ordinance 3173-2020 was brought up for public hearing in front of the Kenai City Council on Wednesday night and passed unanimously.