FARMINGTON – County commissioners agreed Tuesday to set up an asset forfeiture account for the Franklin County Sheriff’s Department and transferred $4,500 into the account so a police dog could be bought to replace the aging Ben.

Money previously gained through the drug forfeiture process went into the general fund, county Treasurer Karen Robinson said after the meeting.

More than $21,000 has been deposited into the county’s general fund from forfeited assets over the past six years with nearly $17,941 of it in the past three years, Deputy David Rackliffe said, also later in the day.

Now the money would be placed into the law enforcement asset forfeiture account, which would be used at the commissioners’ discretion for additional drug-related training and equipment purchases and some drug interdiction efforts to intercept drugs.

The $4,500 transferred into the account came from the county’s $900,000 undesignated fund, Robinson said.

Cpl. Nate Bean, who works with police dog Ben, and Rackliffe, who works with police canine Odin, presented the proposal to commissioners.

According to their written proposal, they conducted a survey of the other 15 counties in Maine. The 12 that replied had some type of asset forfeiture account that money from drug forfeitures is deposited into.

That money is then used to promote law enforcement activities and sometimes specifically marked for drug interdiction efforts, typically available for the sheriff with the authorization of the county commissioners.

Maine law says that the county commissioners have discretion over asset seizures, and if money from those assets is to go anywhere other than a general fund, then it must be approved by a majority vote of the commissioners, Rackliffe said.

Maine has a statute that states that any drug-related assets seized by the state must be used to promote law enforcement, he said.

Rackliffe said he was happy with the commissioners’ decision and their generosity in putting money into the account to buy Bean a new dog to replace 10-year-old Ben, who will be kept by Bean.

“We’ve been trying to do this for years,” Rackliffe said.

Instead of having taxpayers pay for additional items, the Sheriff’s Department can build a fund to take care of these types of expenses such as specialized training or replacing a dog, from the work they do with drug seizures and forfeitures of items that were seized from people prohibited from having them, Rackliffe said.

If an all-terrain vehicle was seized and awarded by the court through forfeiture process to the department, it could either be kept or sold, he said.

Odin and Rackliffe have had four cash seizures since December, two working with Maine Drug Enforcement Agency or State Police, for a combined total of $5,611, Rackliffe said.

That money is still in the court forfeiture process, he said.

In both cases with the other agencies, Odin indicated the presence of illegal narcotics on the money itself, Rackliffe said.

Since Odin was certified in drug-detection in November 2006, 60 grams of crack cocaine were found in Livermore Falls, 40 grams of cocaine and about 1 pound of marijuana in Carthage, 14 ounces of marijuana found in Kingfield and 6 ounces of marijuana in New Vineyard as well as crack and marijuana pipes, Rackliffe said.

Deputy Christopher Chase and his police dog, Jack, will be going to drug-detection school later this year, he said, and eventually Bean’s dog will also.

The dog they’re looking at is 12 months old and has already passed tests that indicate it has what it takes to be a police dog.