Marysville will have to bow out of the Sutter-Yuba Narcotic Enforcement Team until "some money shows up."

Police Chief Wally Fullerton said Tuesday that without sufficient funding to keep both a fully staffed police department and a participating investigator in NET-5 — the region's drug and gang task force — he has to opt for keeping basic police services.

Balancing the budget this year has also meant cutting three City Hall jobs. "It isn't about not wanting to be involved," Fullerton said after getting final permission from City Council to leave NET-5. "It's about not having any money."

The Marysville Police Department has been an active participant in NET-5 for most of the team's 27-year history.

Mike Hudson, who is employed by the California Department of Justice as commander of NET-5, said he understands that Marysville's decision was purely a matter of budgetary necessity.

"But I'd be less than honest if I said I wasn't disappointed," he said.

Marysville's exit will mean that remaining participants — Yuba County, Sutter County, Yuba City and the California Highway Patrol — will have to pay for a bigger share of the task force's funding.

Each agency had been responsible for chipping in roughly $26,000 per year. The share now will be about $34,000.

Despite Marysville's withdrawal from the agency, Hudson said, the task force will continue to work on cases that involve the city and to consult with city police.

But the region can ill afford a shortage of specialized drug and gang crime investigators.

Methamphetamine seizures have doubled in the past year in the Yuba-Sutter area, and the volume of crimes such as robberies and assaults correlates to the level of drug traffic, Hudson said.

"The seriousness of crimes here is no different than in Oakland and San Francisco and Los Angeles," he said, "and per-capita, we have more drug abusers."

Fullerton said he and city officials are well aware of what they are losing by cutting out of NET-5. If and when the city's financial picture changes, "we'll be right back in."

A number of financial setbacks already plagued law enforcement before the city made its cuts in July.

Fullerton said the city lost a grant that had funded three motorcycle traffic officers.

That loss may be partly responsible, he said, for a 50 percent increase in the number Marysville traffic collisions that resulted in injury between 2006 and 2007.

And city officials had to freeze a police lieutenant's position late in 2007 in order to pay for a new computer system.

Worse news is expected in the near future.

City officials say that when the state budget wrangling process is done, legislators will have found ways to extract pounds of flesh from towns like Marysville.

A letter the city recently received from the state Department of Justice outlined a proposal to force each law enforcement agency to pay fees for the handling of evidence.

Fullerton estimates the proposal could cost the city nearly $200,000 per year.

"We're saving every nickel and dime we can. That's where we are right now," Fullerton said.