Boone County approves state money for task force

The Boone County commission approved a little more than $84,000 dollars in state funding for the cyber crimes task force on Tuesday.

It’s welcome news for the task force, but the state grant still falls short of covering the department’s needs.

“Our grant for this fiscal year, we were cut money for particular equipment and some other things that we desperately needed,” said Detective Tracy Perkins with cyber crimes task force.

Thirteen cyber crime units in the state split a yearly grant of $1.5 million and it’s been that way for years. This fiscal year, cyber crime units asked for $300,000 more than the state was willing to give — leaving Boone County $20,000 in the red.

The commission also approved $10,000 in supplemental funding for training and equipment on Tuesday.

“When it comes down to training and equipment, $10,000 goes pretty fast. Like I have a particular officer, a new officer that’s going to be trained — his training is $3,500,” said Perkins.

Task force officials said the costs of running the department continue to grow with inflation and money the state doles out isn’t keeping pace, which means they often have to do without.