AUGUSTA — While Maine’s political leaders seem to have reached agreement on a plan to put more drug crimes investigators to work in Maine, it could be months before those agents hit the streets.

In response to the rampant spread of heroin trafficking in Maine, Gov. Paul LePage and a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers this week agreed to find funding for 10 new investigators for the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency. On Wednesday, LePage sought to expedite that process with a financial order that allocates funding he says will be replaced next year with a legislative appropriation.

“As you know, the hiring and training process can take months,” LePage said Wednesday in a letter to Senate President Mike Thibodeau. “We need these agents to hit the streets as soon as possible.”

In June, the Legislature included in the biennial budget funding for four new MDEA investigators, but according to Roy McKinney, the agency’s director, the first of those positions wasn’t filled until last week in Washington County. Another officer is about to take the oath of office in Somerset County. The two remaining positions, both slotted for York County, are still works in progress.

“The process varies a lot,” McKinney said. “The date of the new officers coming online will vary greatly. When new positions are opened up, that starts a whole process.”

McKinney said if it were simply a matter of MDEA hiring officers directly, the positions could be filled more quickly, but that’s not the case. Here are some reasons why:

No permanent officers

The MDEA has only three permanent employees: McKinney and two administrative assistants. The rest of the investigators are borrowed — on a temporary and revolving basis — from municipal, county, state and federal law enforcement agencies.

Officers stay with the agency for varying amounts of time, ranging from a year or two to several years in the case of commanders and supervisors. In most cases, the MDEA reimburses the officers’ sending departments, who hire replacements. That’s how the agency was set up when it was founded by the Legislature in 1987.

The staffing level is much lower than it used to be. At its peak in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the MDEA had 68 employees, but those numbers were cut back significantly. There have been a total of 35 officers for many years, according to McKinney, though there are currently 39 because of a two-year federal Community Oriented Policing Services grant that expires next year.

At the end of 2016, providing the 14 new positions created by the Legislature are filled, there will be 49 MDEA officers — a nearly 30 percent increase.

“It’s a good first step,” McKinney said. “For an agency that has been working with a staff of 35 for so long, that is a significant increase.”

Complicated hiring process

The applicant pool is limited. Before beginning the hiring process, MDEA evaluates where there’s a need, based on a range of factors including known drug activity. If the need is in a rural part of Maine, the number of departments and, by extension, officers to draw from is often limited.

It’s not as easy as a direct hire. Because the MDEA culls from other police departments, hiring a new officer involves a negotiation process followed by approval at the local level, whether that’s a town or city council or a county board of commissioners. While McKinney said that usually goes smoothly, he said the simple logistics of developing a proposal and going through the local administrative process takes time.

Not every cop is suited for drug investigations. MDEA chooses its officers carefully because drug investigators have unique responsibilities, work odd hours and when it comes to undercover work, it’s dangerous. Sagadahoc County Sheriff Joel Merry, who also is president of the Maine Sheriffs’ Association, said finding appropriate candidates can be challenging.

“You have to have the right officer already on your roster,” Merry said. “Not everyone is cut out to do that kind of work because some of it is kind of down-and-dirty investigations.”

Jurisdictional problems

In some cases, the MDEA clashes with local departments. McKinney and Merry said that’s rare, but several chiefs and sheriffs have wanted more control of drug investigations in their jurisdictions. In addition, there have been conflicts over seizures of money and property. In Maine, the department or agency that makes the bust receives a portion of the seized proceeds.

McKinney said the design of the MDEA results from a belief that having multiple agencies working toward the same goal is most effective.

“Bringing the various agencies together has been found to be an effective way of combatting a series of crimes whether they be burglaries or drug crimes,” McKinney said.

Merry said jurisdiction problems are the exception, not the rule.

“I have heard some sheriffs and chiefs would rather do their own drug task forces,” he said. “I just don’t subscribe to that personally, and I think there are a number of other sheriffs out there who would say the same thing.”

Training, staffing requirements

After being hired, most MDEA agents don’t go straight to full detective status. There’s a six-week mentoring process, and all MDEA agents complete a week-long drug investigation course at the Maine Criminal Justice Academy.

MDEA uses a team approach on investigations. McKinney said MDEA agents always work in pairs because of the complex and dangerous nature of the work.

“We want two officers always present when they’re involved in conducting an investigation,” McKinney said. “We want the right number of people there so that it is safely accomplished.”

A desperate need

The number of drug cases, particularly involving heroin and other opioids, is skyrocketing. Addictions to opioids began to rise in Maine in the late 1990s when the prescription painkiller OxyContin became a recreational drug of choice for thousands. New restrictions on opioid circulation, including the Maine Prescription Monitoring Program, reduced their use but pushed addicts to using heroin, which McKinney said is much cheaper and increasingly easy to find.

“Addicts follow the path of least resistance,” he said. That path has increasingly led to heroin.

In 2011, the MDEA investigated 69 heroin cases. That number jumped to 307 in 2014 and continues to rise. As of Wednesday, the MDEA has handled 451 heroin cases in 2015.

Gearing up to better fight the problem will be a long and arduous process.

“I hope people don’t think this is going to happen overnight,” Merry said. “Those agents are not going to be deployed in the next couple of weeks and start making arrests. It’s going to take a little bit of time.”

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