Trenton, Jun 25, 2012 - A $3 million federal grant has been awarded to the City of Trenton, Congressman Chris Smith (NJ-04) announced today. The Department of Justice COPS Office, which runs the COPS Hiring Program (CHP), awards the grants to create and/or preserve law enforcement jobs.

    “This federal grant will help improve safety and put police officers back on the streets of the capital of New Jersey,” said Smith. “We hope this offsets some of the personnel reductions experienced by the city’s police force. Trenton cops have a hard job to do, and hopefully this will help to some degree.”

    The grant was officially awarded today by COPS Director Bernard Melekian, to whom Smith made a personal appeal 10 months ago, explaining the extraordinary budgetary and public safety challenges the city faced.

    The CHP grant is for $3,018,720 over a three-year period, and will provide funding to address the full-time officer shortages. CHP grants go directly to law enforcement agencies to hire new officers and/or rehire full-time laid-off officers to increase their community policing capacity and crime prevention efforts. 

    The administration of Trenton Mayor Tony Mack worked for months lobbying for the public safety funding.

    “I would like to recognize the efforts of our congressional delegation, Congressman Rush Holt, Congressman Chris Smith, Senator Frank Lautenberg, and Senator Robert Menendez for recognizing that public safety is crucial to the success of our cities," Mack said.

    One notable change for the 2012 CHP program is the requirement that all new officers hired under the grant must be military veterans that have served at least 180 days of active military service, any part of which occurred on or after September 11, 2001.

    The 2012 CHP grants provide 75 percent funding for approved, entry-level salaries and benefits for three years 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. Any additional costs above approved entry-level salaries and benefits are the responsibility of the grantee.