2009/09/16 Council Agenda Packet

COPS Office: CHRP Background and Award Methodology Page 1 of 3 COPS Office of Community Oriented Policing Services U.S. Department of Justice * CHRP Background and Award Methodology ***alum cev • The COPS Hiring Recovery Program (CHRP) is funded through the American rt. Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Recovery Act) of 2009, P.L.111-5, and Eprovides $1 billion directly to law enforcement agencies to hire and/or rehire career law enforcement officers in an effort to create and preserve jobs and increase their community policing capacity and crime prevention efforts. CHRP is different from previous COPS hiring grant programs. Given the fiscal distress experienced by state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies, Congress waived the previously required 25 percent local match and the $75,000 salary cap. CHRP grants cover 100 percent of the approved entry-level salary and fringe benefits of each newly-hired and/or rehired, full-time sworn career law enforcement officer over three years (36 months) with a 12-month retention period. The Recovery Act does not itself require a local match or cap on the amount of funding that can be requested, but CHRP grant funding is based on an agency's current entry-level salary and fringe benefits for full-time sworn officers. Funding under this program may be used to: • Hire new officers, which includes filling existing officer vacancies that are no longer funded in agencies' budgets. • Rehire officers who have already been laid off(at the time of the application) as a result of state, local, or tribal budget cuts. • Rehire officers who are (at the time of the application) currently scheduled to be laid off on a future date as a result of state, local, or tribal budget cuts. Grantees will be required to continue funding the positions with local funding until the date(s) of the scheduled lay-offs. An applicant may not reduce its budget for sworn officers just to take advantage of CHRP funding. Any budget cut must be unrelated to the receipt of CHRP grant funds to avoid a violation of the COPS statute nonsupplanting requirement. The hiring or rehiring of officers under CHRP must be in addition to, and not in lieu of, officers who otherwise would have been hired or rehired with local funds. The COPS Office developed an open competitive solicitation for all local, state, and federally recognized tribal law enforcement agencies that have primary law enforcement authority. To receive applications, the COPS Office developed a new, on-line application system that was made available to agencies from Monday, March 16th to April 14th, 2009, 11:59 p.m. EDT. During this solicitation period, the COPS Response Center responded to 17,626 telephone calls, 589 voicemail messages, and 4,300 e-mail messages providing technical assistance to agencies in filling out the CHRP application. This application resulted in the submission of applications from 7,272 law enforcement agencies requesting $8.3 billion to fund more than 39,000 officer positions. Developing the Application The statutory mission of the COPS Office is to advance the practice of community policing as an effective strategy in communities' efforts to improve public safety. Part of the stated intent of the 122 iQ/14/1CCIl(1