BJA Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) Grant 2009 CHRP Text and Links

The Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office) is pleased to announce the availability of funding under the COPS Hiring Recovery Program (CHRP). The COPS Office will receive the funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 to address the personnel needs of state, local, and tribal law enforcement. Application materials are scheduled to be available before the end of March. CHRP is a competitive grant program that provides funding directly to law enforcement agencies having primary law enforcement authority to create and preserve jobs and to increase their community policing capacity and crime-prevention efforts. Up to $1 billion in grant funding will be available for the hiring and rehiring of additional career law enforcement officers. There is no local match requirement for CHRP, but grant funding will be based on current entry-level salary and benefits packages and therefore any additional costs for higher salaries or benefits for particular individuals hired will be the responsibility of the grantee agency. CHRP grants will provide 100 percent funding for approved entry-level salaries and benefits for 3 years (36 months) for newly-hired, full-time sworn officer positions (including filling existing unfunded vacancies) or for rehired officers who have been laid off, or are scheduled to be laid off on a future date, as a result of local budget cuts. In addition, there is no cap on the number of positions an agency may request, but awards will be limited to available funding. Please be mindful of the initial 3-year grant period and your agency’s ability to fill the officer positions awarded, while following your agency’s established hiring policies and procedures. At the conclusion of federal funding, grantees must retain all sworn officer positions awarded under the CHRP grant. The retained CHRP-funded position(s) should be added to the grantee’s law enforcement budget with state and/or local funds, over and above the number of locally-funded positions that would have existed in the absence of the grant. Applications for CHRP grants will be accepted only online through the COPS Office web site: www.cops.usdoj.gov. The online application materials are scheduled to be available before the end of March, but in the interim, the COPS Office wants to ensure that your agency has sufficient time to complete the following required steps before the solicitation opens: • Visit the “Account Access” portion of the COPS web site at www.cops.usdoj.gov to determine if your agency currently has an active online account and/or how to create one.