FRANKFORT, Ind. – The Frankfort Police Department (FPD) has been awarded a $125,000 grant to hire a new police officer through the Department of Justice’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office) COPS Hiring Program (CHP). FPD was one of 180 grants awarded nationwide of 711 applications received for fiscal year 2022 grant cycle.
“We’re happy with this [announcement],”said Frankfort Police Chief Scott Shoemaker.
Shoemaker explained the funding process as the funding from CHP will provide partial funding over three years with the city committing to fund 100% of the new officer pay in year 4, “the first three years is a match, 75% federal government, 25% the city. And then in the fourth year, we’re required to fully fund that position for at least one year.”
The original FPD grant application requested funding for three officers to allow for specialized trained officers in mental health shared Shoemaker.
“We’d ask for three. Our intent was to have an officer with using one that we already have – our goal was to have at least one specialized officer that’s trained in mental health – a little bit far beyond than what we normally do.”
Frankfort Mayor Judy Sheets too was excited to receive news of the awarding of the grant.
“I’m so excited about this,” said Frankfort Mayor Judy Sheets. “That’s gonna help us out to be able to add one more person to the police department.”
Sheets added this grant will assist the city with services needed as part of the annexation to I-65 in 2025.
“As we move forward on 28 to the interstate, we are hoping to add possibly up to three officers. So this is gonna help the city out quite a bit financially as we are moving forward because we have to start offering services in 2025.”
Shoemaker was asked if the grant will allow the FPD to hire from the current recruitment class going through the hiring process.
“Absolutely. That’s the good news – the good news is that instead of hiring one out of this, we’ll be able to hire two. We have some good candidates.”
FPD is waiting to hear when the funding will be released from the DOJ for the hiring to be funded, but believe it will be no later than January 2023.
Nationwide, the awards provide direct funding to 180 law enforcement agencies, allowing those agencies to hire 973 additional full-time law enforcement professionals according to the DOJ.
Since its creation in 1994, COPS has invested more than $14 billion to advance community policing, including grants awarded to more than 13,000 state, local and Tribal law enforcement agencies to fund the hiring and redeployment of more than 136,000 officers.
