The Stafford County Sheriff’s Office is applying for a federal grant to get funds for more officers.
The Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) grants are funded through the U.S. Department of Justice, and are meant to assist law enforcement agencies with staffing needs.
“We’ve taken advantage of them in the past to supplement and increase our sworn staffing – primarily with the argument that we’re a fast growing community and that we’re not able to keep up with the human resource that is needed to engage in and fulfill our community policing mission,” said Stafford Sheriff Charles Jett.
The county was awarded a COPS grant in 1999 and was able to hire 10 new officers.
According to Jett, applying for these grants has gotten very competitive.
“We’ve seen the amount of money dwindle, in regards to nationwide, the amount is available to grantees. We’ve also seen it become extremely competitive, as a number of law enforcement agencies laid off officers during the economically challenging times…for us, we’re making the case that we’ve already made before the board of supervisors and that’s that through our sheriff’s office staffing strategic plan, we were able to demonstrate that currently we are 30 field positions down,” said Jett.
The COPS funding allows for a 5% increase in sworn officers – which would be 8 positions for Stafford, according to Jett.
In total, Stafford County could receive up to $1 million, and there is a local matching responsibility that the Stafford County Board of Supervisors would have to agree to. The board gave Jett the approval to apply for the grant last month.
For Jett, this funding would allow the county to offer better response times and community outreach.
“It would enhance and increase service delivery. As we’re now showing that our response times are not where we want them to be on emergency calls – it’s also showing that our deputy currently has a minimal amount of proactive community policing time to engage in the community, in problem solving activities….it would [also] reduce the financial impact on the community,” Jett commented.
The winners of the COPS grants will be announced before the end of September.
