In Ducey’s last year in office, he proposed practically doubling the Border Strike Force budget from $9 million to $17.1 million.|| Rachel Beth Banks, Cronkite News
By Richard Ruelas || The Arizona Republic
Gov. Katie Hobbs, in her first proposed budget unveiled Friday, recommended eliminating the Arizona Border Strike Force, a pet program of former Gov. Doug Ducey, and reallocating the troopers within the Arizona Department of Public Safety.
It is not clear how the change would affect the daily operations of troopers assigned to the Border Strike Force, as records from the DPS showed it appeared to be a unit in name only. The drug seizures credited to it appeared to come from routine traffic stops along highways all across Arizona; they weren’t the cartel-disrupting investigations and operations that Ducey initially said the unit would undertake.
Furthermore, records of the unit, obtained by The Arizona Republic under a judge’s order, showed more than half of the drug seizures credited to the Border Strike Force were done by troopers who were not part of the unit.
The Border Strike Force “does not appear to have accomplished its intended purpose.”
Gov. Katie Hobbs
In Gov. Ducey’s last year in office, he proposed practically doubling the Border Strike Force budget from $9 million to $17.1 million.
In Ducey’s last year in office, he proposed practically doubling the Border Strike Force budget from $9 million to $17.1 million. And he proposed ballooning a grant program for local law enforcement members from $1.2 million to $12.2 million.
The Arizona Legislature approved both requests with no apparent debate.
