Schumer: Trump $340M budget cut would hurt LI opioid fight

Long Island law enforcement officials on Monday criticized a Trump administration proposal to slash funding — in the thick of the deadly opioid scourge — to a federal anti-drug trafficking program that provided Nassau and Suffolk county police departments with their new overdose mapping technology.

The proposed $340 million budget cut, a more than 90 percent drop from the previous fiscal year, to the Office of National Drug Control Policy, which administers the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program, or HIDTA, would coincide with HIDTA’s shift to the Department of Justice, which critics of the move said would bury the program in bureaucracy.

“Why at the time of crisis would you move HIDTA from its position of prominence and bring it into the Justice Department, where we don’t know what will happen?” Nassau District Attorney Madeline Singas said at a news conference Monday at Nassau police headquarters in Mineola.

Nassau and Suffolk counties have received more than $2 million in HIDTA funding since 2002, and the program has provided the police departments with crucial opioid overdose mapping technology. As many as 600 people on Long Island died last year from opioid overdoses, according to official projections.

Nassau Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder said HIDTA was also integral to providing police with technology such as license plate readers.

“It’s neutral ground and it’s not stuck behind an agency,” Ryder said. “We can go to them for anything that we need and the resources always come back — or at least a solution on how we can get it done.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) — who organized the coordinated response from local officials, including Nassau County Executive Laura Curran, to President Donald Trump’s proposal — said HIDTA has bipartisan support because of its effectiveness.

“The proposal to shuffle the deck and bury HIDTA within the bowels of the Justice Department, outside the direct purview of the White House . . . would be akin to putting Long Island law enforcement on hold when they make calls and need help in real time,” Schumer said.

Schumer said he was unsure whether Trump, who refers to himself as a law-and-order president who loves police, had direct knowledge of the proposed budget cut, but he said he would seek to talk to the president to prevent HIDTA from being moved.

Schumer said he “can’t even get a good reason” for the change from DOJ officials and said Mick Mulvaney, director of the Office of Management and Budget, “just wants to cut the heck out of everything.”

Jeffrey Reynolds, president and CEO of the Mineola-based Family and Children’s Association, a drug-treatment advocacy group, said addiction professionals rely on police to “quite frankly reduce the supply” of illegal drugs.

“Any cuts to law enforcement at this point in the crisis, will further set us back,” Reynolds said.

Suffolk District Attorney Timothy Sini, the previous police commissioner, said HIDTA had provided “effective collaboration” among police agencies.

“We’re able to spot patterns and trends and address those issues proactively,” Sini said. “It would be a real shame to lose this program.”

By Nicole Fuller

nicole.fuller@newsday.com@NicoleFuller

Nicole Fuller is Newsday's senior criminal justice reporter. She began working at Newsday in 2012 and previously covered local government.