Funding restored for law-enforcement training facility in Pa.

A training center run by the Pennsylvania National Guard is back in action after seeing its funding stall, then return.

At the Northeast Counterdrug Training Center at Fort Indiantown Gap in Lebanon County, law-enforcement officers from 18 states and Washington, D.C., learn how to identify drug and weapons smugglers.

The center trains up to 17,000 officers a year. For now, that trend will continue, thanks to restored funds that came with congressional agreement over the 2011 budget.

Because so much of the center’s budget has come at the end of the fiscal year, there’s more money than usual for “big-ticket classes,” said Capt. Craig Kiehl who heads the center.

“We’ll bring in commercial vehicles, fleets of them with hidden compartments inside of them and we’ll be able to expose officers from small departments and small local departments to come in and see this and be exposed to this complex training,” Kiehl said. “It’s really a win-win for everybody.”