CPD receives no grant money
Vice President Joe Biden and Attorney General Eric Holder announced $1 billion in law enforcement grants earlier today in Philadelphia, Penn. According to a White House news release, the grants, which will be administered through the U.S. Department of Justice, are to be used to help cities hire and keep police officers on staff during the economic recession.
The news release stated the money for the grants will come from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Out of the over 7,000 grant applications, about 1,000 were filled. The news release stated these funds would provide full salaries and benefits for 4,699 officers over three years.
"A big part of the Recovery Act is about building communities – making them as strong as they can be, allowing every American family to live a better life than the one they are leading now," Biden said in the news release. "And we can’t achieve the goal of stronger communities without supporting those who keep our streets safe."
14 agencies in Missouri received grant funding with a total of $19 million being allotted to the state. Kansas City and St. Louis City police departments each received $8 million of these funds. Public Information Office Jesse Haden said the Columbia Police Department applied for funding for six additional officers but she said the department did not receive any funds from the program.
She said while the police department was hopeful of receiving grant money, she described the CPD's chances of receiving funds were "slim".
"One of the factors taken into consideration with this was the economy," Haden said. "And while everyone is feeling the pinch, Columbia isn't hurting as much as other cities".
Haden said CPD did receive an email from the Justice Department which stated CPD and other agencies could receive funds in the future, depending on the amount of money allotted to the Justice Department in the FY 2010 budget.
Haden said it wasn't clear at this time whether or not the extra officers the department applied for were needed because of CPD's transition to geographic policing. Geographic policing is a technique that assigns individual officers to certain areas of town which they are then responsible for policing. She said until this transition is complete it will be hard to estimate the amount of officers the city would need, but she said if the department needed to, more officers could be hired in the future.