June 2009 - Earlier this year, the COPS Office was appropriated $1 billion through the Recovery Act for the COPS Hiring Recovery Program (CHRP), a competitive grant program designed to create or save state, local, and tribal law enforcement jobs. Applications submitted for the COPS Hiring Recovery Program (CHRP) are now under active review at the COPS Office.
During the CHRP solicitation period, the COPS Office received 7,272 applications totaling $8.3 billion and requesting more than 39,000 sworn law enforcement positions. These requests far exceed the funding available under CHRP, and with no cap on officer salary or local match requirement, the COPS Office will be able to fund only a portion of the officer and deputy positions requested.
Since the April 14, 2009 application deadline, the COPS Office has been reviewing the data submitted in each application. In some cases, COPS Office staff have called applicant agencies to verify information provided in their applications. In fact, COPS Office staff have contacted more than 1,700 agencies to validate their data, and in total have reviewed more than 275,000 data points. This data verification process, though time-consuming, is very important because it ensures that all applicants will be properly evaluated based on each agency’s economic, crime, and community policing data.
Now that the work described above is complete, the COPS Office is moving quickly to the next phase of the process, which includes conducting in-depth budget request reviews and evaluating the retention requirement information and other aspects of the application. In preparing a final CHRP award list, the COPS Office will look at the total number of sworn positions being requested by each agency and determine how best to allocate the available funds.
The COPS Office will complete this work and make awards no later than September 30, and likely sooner. For future updates on CHRP, updates on other COPS Office grant programs, and information on community policing and public safety issues, visit COPS Online at www.cops.usdoj.gov.