A new crime squad with a familiar mandate is about to go to work in Marin County.

The “Specialized Investigative Unit,” or SIU, is a leaner version of the Marin County Major Crimes Task Force. The task force was disbanded earlier this year as the coronavirus pandemic strained municipal budgets.

The agreement to establish the SIU is on the Marin County Board of Supervisors’ consent calendar for Tuesday. It will be adopted unless a supervisor pulls it from the agenda for further discussion.

On Nov. 3, the supervisors voted to dissolve a joint powers authority agreement for the task force, disband the squad and liquidate the assets. The decision allowed officials to reallocate $835,855 that was budgeted for that program to create the SIU team in its place.

“Narcotics violations and mid-level trafficking is happening in the county, and anyone who thinks differently is mistaken,” Marin County Sheriff Bob Doyle said. “The SIU will target narcotics and serious and violent crimes. These kinds of investigations take a lot of time and effort that our normal patrol units don’t have time for.”

However, Marin police reform activists enlivened by the Black Lives Matter movement oppose the investigations unit. They plan to plead with officials to spend money on county behavioral crisis teams instead.

Robbie Powelson, founder of the Tam Equity Campaign, called the Marin County Sheriff’s Office a “reckless organization that doesn’t need more funding.”

“We’re going to make sure that it’s not business as usual for Sheriff Doyle,” he said.

The SIU will include three sheriff’s detectives, a California Highway Patrol officer and a detective from the Central Marin Police Authority. Tiburon and Belvedere are not providing officers but have pledged to contribute $46,063 and $16,408, respectively, for the services.

Doyle said the new squad has been operating under an informal partnership since the task force broke up in July. Municipalities that contributed to the team forecast budget deficits and decided to withdraw from the partnership.

The task force was formed in 1977 and operated with the financial participation of the county and 11 cities. It was formed on a recommendation by Marin’s police chiefs, who said there was a need for a countywide approach to cracking down on drug trafficking. Such crimes often can be tied to burglaries, thefts, gang problems and assaults, according to the chiefs.

The most recent iteration of the task force was staffed with 15 officers, including a sheriff’s lieutenant and detectives from the sheriff’s office, the Novato Police Department and the Central Marin Police Authority. The CHP, a federal drug enforcement officer and probation officers were also part of the team.

Sausalito, which dropped out of the agreement in 2013, citing budget concerns, is the only Marin municipality that was not participating in the most recent crime squad. San Rafael had withdrawn for 12 years before rejoining in 2014.

The task force budget for fiscal year 2020-21 was approximately $1.7 million, according to the sheriff’s office. About $840,000 came from city and town contributions. The funds were divvied up among those agencies upon the disbanding of the task force.

In July, San Rafael Police Chief Diana Bishop said the department’s withdrawal from the program was strictly a business decision. The department had been contributing about $190,000 to the task force.

Bishop said the agency will be able to manage its own investigations.

“We have seven, including our detective sergeant, investigators assigned full time to our investigations unit,” Bishop said.

Likewise, Novato Police Chief Matt McCaffrey said the city department had its own investigations staff. It includes a sergeant and four detectives and a “response team” composed of a sergeant and two officers.

“If it wasn’t for this budgetary issue with revenue declines related to COVID-19, we would’ve never pulled out of the task force,” McCaffrey said. Novato’s contribution was $48,307 in addition to providing an officer, an amount equal to about $235,000.

McCaffrey said the Novato department still does participate in and contributes an officer to the Coordination of Probation Enforcement team, a program that was under the original Major Crimes Task Force umbrella.

“So, in a way, we are part of the task force still,” he said.

“We’re closely watching COVID,” he said. “It’s been tough on the economy and on revenue for cities.”