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FEDS TO FUND SEVEN PB POLICE OFFICERS

By Ray King/OF THE COMMERCIAL STAFF
Tuesday, July 28, 2009 11:00 PM CDT

The city of Pine Bluff’s application for funds to hire new police officers was approved Tuesday by the Department of Justice. The approximately $1 million is part of the $8.7 million Arkansas will receive.

While the city didn’t get money for all 13 officers they asked for, the federal grant will pay salaries and benefits for seven new police officers for three years.

Figures provided by the justice department indicated that 136 agencies in Arkansas applied for funds under the Community Oriented Policing Services program, commonly called COPS, and only 16 received funds.

“We’re very happy that we’re receiving funding to be able to hire seven officers, especially when you consider that six out of seven of all the requests for money were not funded,” said police Lt. Bob Rawlinson, who worked on the application for several months before it was submitted. “We’re really pleased that we were able to make the final cut.”

Thousands of applicants

Nationally, federal officials said there were more than 7,000 applications, and just over 1,000 of them received funding.

“They will be sending us additional information on how to get the money, then there will be a verification process so that we can tell them we still want the funds, and what accounts they should be deposited in before we can actually start looking at hiring the new officers,” Rawlinson said. “That may take a couple of months to get done.”

To fully comply with the grant requirements, Rawlinson said the department will have to keep the new officers for one budget cycle after the three-year funding expires.

With the seven new officers, Rawlinson said that would bring the department’s authorized strength to 150 officers.

Arkansas will receive $8,683,270 under the program, enough money to hire 60 new officers at 16 agencies. Little Rock will add the most officers, getting funding for 20, while North Little Rock will be able to hire nine and Pine Bluff and Jonesboro seven each.

The only city in Southeast Arkansas to receive funds besides Pine Bluff was Lake Village, which will be able to hire one new officer with $110,664 from the federal program.

Applications from Southeast Arkansas law enforcement agencies that did not receive funding included the Warren and Dumas Police Departments, and the Bradley County, Dallas County, Grant County, and Lincoln County Sheriff’s Departments.

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