Effort to Restore COPS Funding Approved by U.S. Senate
(10/18/2007)

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Senate last night approved the Fiscal Year 2008 Justice Department Appropriations Bill, which includes an amendment sponsored by Sens. Joseph Biden (D-DE) and Herb Kohl (D-WI) to provide $110 million for the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) Universal Hiring Program. The funding will allow local law enforcement departments to hire approximately 1,400 new police officers across the county. Years of decreases in COPS funding have led to fewer patrol officers on the streets and an increase in violent crime. The Biden-Kohl amendment directs funding to COPS hiring for the first time in three years, and even then there was merely $10 million budgeted for police hiring for fiscal year 2005.

"The [Bush] Administration has repeatedly slashed funding for the program and we hope today's funding will help reverse that trend," Kohl said.

Due in part to cuts in COPS program funding, the Milwaukee Police Department, for example, has 227 vacancies.

The Hiring Program provides federal funding for 75 percent of a newly hired entry-level officer's salary and benefits, up to a maximum amount of $75,000 per officer, over the course of the three-year grant period. Departments are generally required to contribute at least 25 percent in local matching funds, unless the recipient agency is approved for a waiver of the local match based upon a demonstration of extraordinary fiscal hardship.

The COPS program, administered through the Department of Justice, was passed into law in 1994. The goal was to place 100,000 new officers on the beat by 2000 -- a goal that was realized ahead of time and under budget. COPS grant programs also include assistance for purchasing new technologies and equipment that result in officers spending more time on the streets, and financing the training of former military personnel for local law enforcement.