The Cullman County D.A.R.E. Board solidified legislative changes to the dispersement of the program’s funds, which were approved in May, on Wednesday, Sept. 6.

For the last 30 years, when the original bill was enacted in 1993, additional fees have been added to local court costs in order to provide funding for D.A.R.E. programs across Cullman County and Cullman City Schools.

• All traffic tickets — $5
• All misdemeanor alcohol arrests — $10
• All misdemeanor drug arrests — $20
• All misdemeanor D.U.I. arrests — $25
• All other misdemeanor arrests — $5
• All felony alchohol arrests — $50
• All felony D.U.I. arrests — $50
• All drug trafficking arrests — $100
• All other felony arrests — $10

State Rep. Corey Harbison told The Times in May that at the request of local law enforcement agencies he had proposed amendments which would loosen the law’s language, allowing for a broader scope of uses for the funds.

Cullman County Sheriff Matt Gentry, as a member of the seven person board said “We had talked about changing this bill three or four years ago because D.A.R.E. is actually outdated. The way the law was written, we could only purchase things from D.A.R.E. or if we wanted to send someone to a conference it had to be D.A.R.E. Well, those things don’t exist anymore,” Gentry said on Wednesday.

Harbison said all additional fees will remain the same and the only significant changes to the bill was the removal of any language involving the D.A.R.E. program in favor of the more encompassing “School Resource Officer Fund.”

Historically the funds have been dispersed between the Cullman City and Cullman County school districts on alternating five year cycles. County Administrator, John Bullard, said the only confusion within the law was an exact timeframe as to when the change was to be implemented.

While the law states it was to become effective immediately upon Gov. Kay Ivey’s approval, city treasurer Sherry Compton said the city still had nearly a month remaining in their five year cycle.

“My five years at the city were not up. So, that is what we’re here for, is to decide how we were going to do that because he [Bullard] had some money and I had some money and we needed to get all of that together,” Compton said.

Both Bullard and Compton said they have been holding onto the funds they have received since May awaiting the board’s decision as to which entity they should be distributed to.

While several of the board members stated they would be willing to reset the rotation cycle if needed it was ultimately decided to allow the city to continue receiving funding until Oct. 1 when its cycle was set to expire.