Drug roundups in the area highlighted the need for continued funding of drug task force operations across the country, according to officials.

&#8220Operation Byrne” was designed to show the impact and effectiveness of task forces that funding from the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant, said Tommy Loving, director of the Bowling Green-Warren County Drug Task Force. Loving is also president of the Kentucky Narcotics Officers Association.

The grants provide most of the funding for drug task forces in the U.S., he said. Law enforcement officers here conducted two roundups from April 23 through April 29, which resulted in 29 arrests.

The large scale operation included Kentucky State Police, Kentucky Vehicle Enforcement, local police and sheriffs’ departments along with the task force.

It was another effort by the state to combat the sale of drugs, said Gen. Normal E. Arflack, secretary of the Justice and Public Safety Cabinet.

&#8220We’re taking an innovative approach in order to make the public aware of the significance of continued funding with the overall goal of cleaning up the streets and providing a safer environment for all our citizens,” he said.

The federal government receives significant enforcement for the money it provides task forces, Loving said.

The Bush administration has been trying to remove Byrne funding for the past two years, Loving said.

&#8220But Congress has seen fit to replace the Byrne funding in the budget,” he said. &#8220The Kentucky delegation has been very supportive of drug task forces.”

This year Bush’s budget includes $600 million for Byrne grants, Loving said. Legislators have already proposed increasing that amount to $900 million.

&#8220That would bring us back up to the funding levels we had in 2000 and 2001,” Loving said.

Sen. Diana Feinstein, D-Calif., made that amendment in March. Small and rural law enforcement agencies are more dependent on these grants funds, she wrote.

&#8220The need for this amendment is clear. This country is currently experiencing a violent crime surge unlike anything we have seen in more than a decade,” she wrote within the amendment.

Homicides and robberies both rose by at least 10 percent from 2004 through 2006, and aggravated assaults with firearms rose during the same period by nearly that much, according to the Police Executive Research Forum, a Washington, D.C.-based organization of police chiefs, sheriffs and other state and local law enforcement leaders.

Yet the budget continues to propose dramatic cuts for state and local law enforcement, Feinstein wrote. During the 1990s, when state and local law enforcement was funded, there was a decrease in crime.

&#8220Homeland security is undoubtedly important, but so is home town security,” she wrote.

The Barren-Edmonson County Drug Task Force also was involved in the efforts to bring attention to the funding issue, said director Jeff Scruggs.

&#8220We’re all in this together,” he said.

The task force worked Wednesday with state police in Barren County and also did some &#8220knock-and-talk efforts” of their own, Scruggs said.

The roundup organized by the Bowling Green-Warren County Drug Task Force resulted in 18 arrests.

The effort by state police, Barren-Edmonson County Drug Task Force, Barren County Sheriff’s Department, Cave City Police Department and Glasgow Police Department resulted in 11 arrests.

&#8220The large number of arrests and seizures each drug task force made is representative of what Kentucky’s law enforcement can accomplish when resources are pulled together to take illegal drugs off the streets,” Loving said.

Statistics for all state law enforcement activity last week will be announced today during a press conference at state police headquarters in Frankfort.