Gov. Kay Ivey announced a new grant program which is designed to fill the gap in funding caused by the loss of pistol permit fees.

Those grants were included in the bill passed by the state Legislature when it ended the need for pistol permits.

The governor’s announcement came almost simultaneously as Sheriff Matthew Wade was making his case to the Calhoun County Commission to explore having the state Legislature increase the price of county car tags $2 as a way to “help but doesn’t fix” the situation.

The tag measure, if implemented, could bring in as much as $260,000, and Wade told The Anniston Star on Tuesday those are funds he needs “right now” and the grants aren’t going to do much to help.

The state grants, titled “The Local Government Pistol Permit Revenue Loss Fund,” will begin issuing funds quarterly to each of the state’s 67 counties.

The amount of money each county receives will be based on monies each sheriff’s department collected on pistol permit fees in 2022.

“As we have amended Alabama law to help our gun owners, we also worked to ensure our sheriffs received their critical funds,” Ivey said in a news release. “I am proud that these grants will do that.”

Wade said the grants are not a “permanent fix” lasting for only three years and will short change the sheriff’s department on its pistol permit losses.

“They are going off the amount of permits sold in Fiscal Year 2022,” Wade said. “It was originally written using the Fiscal Year 2021 amounts. They changed it at the last minute because in 2022 we were already seeing about half our permit revenues lost because people already knew they weren’t going to need them. We are about half down, so we can only be made about half full.”

Wade explained his department will now have to show what was lost in 2022 when revenues were already declining and match it to what is sold in 2023 — a year when the permits are not necessary at all with the new law.

“This is politics at its best,” Wade said. “We need a permanent solution to the funding problems that is plaquing sheriff’s offices. This is not a full solution. This is just a way to make things seem better than they are.”

Wade said funding is needed for vehicles and body cameras “right now.”

He said the request for a car tag increase bill in the state Legislature stands because if it is not passed “we are in bad trouble.”

“We presently need $500,000 a year to purchase ten vehicles a year and those have to last ten years,” Wade said. “Body cameras that I pay $200,000 for are coming up that I have to pay for by March 31. I don’t have it. The public demands we have those body cameras. Those that work here demand we provide them with body cameras.”

He said the proposed $2 car tag increase bill earmarks those funds “only to purchase vehicles for the sheriff’s office.”

“Somebody is going to have to come up with some money or we won’t have vehicles to respond to calls,” Wade said. “If you have five vehicles, I’m only asking $10 a year to help provide public safety to our county. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.”

Wade did not hold back in his criticism of the state Legislature’s handling of the problem.

“They’ll say they have fixed it. No they haven’t. They’ve kicked the can down the road with a temporary solution and overlooked some stuff to make it look better,” Wade said. “Somebody has got to have some guts somewhere. They had guts when they took away pistol permits because they didn’t want the gun groups on them.”

He also cited legislators who are also business owners and always stand firm against raising taxes in any form.

“These are the same people who don’t hesitate to increase the price of their services as costs go up,” Wade said.

Wade said state legislators “all say they are for law enforcement.”

“The proof is in the pudding,” he said. “I haven’t seen the actual support. They say it, but I haven’t seen it. I need to see that.”

Wade noted many of the department’s issues have been more exacerbated with the recent prisoner early release program of which two have already come back to cross paths with the CCSO.

“They need to stop beating up on us and give us salaries for which people will want to come and do this job and the tools they need to do it,” he said.

“People are spoiled in a sense — they call 911 and people just show up. If things don’t change, services are going to have to be cut somewhere,” Wade said.

___

(c)2023 The Anniston Star (Anniston, Ala.)

Visit The Anniston Star (Anniston, Ala.) at www.annistonstar.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.