Memorandum

City of Lawrence

Police Department

 

To:

David Corliss, City Manager

From:

W. Ronald Olin, Chief of Police

cc:

Diane Stoddard, Asst. City Manager; Cynthia Wagner, Asst. City Manager

Date:

May 6,2010

Re:

May 11, 2010 Agenda Item

Please include the following item on the City Commission consent agenda at the May 11, 2010 meeting:

Description:  2010 COPS Hiring Program Grant Submission

In 2009, the federal government provided $1 billion in the Recovery Act to state and local law enforcement agencies to create or preserve nearly 5,000 law enforcement positions.  The CHRP grant provided 100 percent funding for approved entry level salaries and benefits for three years for newly hired, full-time sworn officer positions or for rehired officers who had been laid off due to economic reasons. 

Details:  The Lawrence Police Department received City Commission approval in 2009 to apply and compete for stimulus funds available through the 2009 COPS (Community Oriented Policing Services) Hiring and Recovery Program (CHRP) to pay for four (4) new police officer positions.  Our application was one of almost 7,300 CHRP applications submitted and one of 85 from the State of Kansas alone.

Our application articulated our need to increase the number of sworn personnel and after being assessed against all other needs in the state, we ranked 17th in the State of Kansas.  The top 10 agencies in Kansas were awarded funds from the 2009 CHRP grant.

 

We were informed from the CHRP that even though our application was not chosen in 2009 to receive funding, our application was not being denied but rather now in a “pending” status in case additional funding was to come available.

 

On April 13, 2010, we were notified by the COPS Office they had recently been authorized to open the 2010 COPS Hiring Program (CHP) and will be awarding $298 million to address the full-time sworn officer needs of state and local law enforcement agencies nationwide.  In 2010, COPS will select CHP grantees from the existing pool of the remaining 6,000 applications from the 2009 COPS Hiring and Recovery Program.

 

A review of our records offer the following statistical overview of our expansion during the last ten years.

 

Police Officers

1990

103 sworn police positions

 

1994

105 sworn (+2 added by federal grant)

 

1996

113 sworn (+3 alcohol money, +3 parking, +2 warrants)

 

1997

118 sworn (+5 general fund)

 

In the last ten years we have added:

 

1999

118 sworn police positions

2000

123 sworn (+5 General Fund)

2002

134 sworn (+4 COPS grant, +7 Traffic Unit/KDOT grant, and lost one lieutenant position)

2003

139 sworn (+5 detective positions – General Fund)

2005

141 sworn plus 1 Chief of Police to total 142 sworn (+2 sergeant positions – General Fund)

 

The use of grants to expand the department has resulted in an expansion of 11 of the 23 officers, or 48%, of the officers we have added during the past 10 years.

 

Funding:  The COPS Office will now consider our existing application for funding under COPS Hiring Program (CHP) in 2010.  The CHP funding is similar to CHRP in that it will cover officer entry-level salaries and benefits for three years, has no local matching requirement, and requires positions awarded to be retained for a minimum of 12 months at the conclusion of the 36 months of federal funding for each position. 

 

Entry level salary plus benefits for one officer is $55,982.00 per year.  The total project cost fully funded by the grant if approved is $715,528.00 (Four officers for three years). The City of Lawrence will not incur any costs for salary or benefits for these four positions until the year 2013 at the earliest.  The cost in the year 2013 to the department budget will be $279,136.00.

 

In June 2010, our department will be asked by the COPS Office to submit target updates to our application so our request can be evaluated on current data.  If we do not update our information at that time our application will be eliminated from consideration for 2010 CHP funding. 

 

Action Requested:  The police department requests approval to move forward with the 2010 CHP grant process and seek the support of you and the City Commission on again requesting the COPS CHP funds to increase the sworn authorized strength of the police department by four police officer positions.