By KENNEDY GRIFFIN
(Greenfield, MA) At Wednesday’s City Council meeting the Council accepted the $375,000 COPS Hiring Grant and now the Greenfield Police Department is moving forward with hiring three new officers. This comes after Chief Haigh’s announcement that the department had lost six officers since July 1st and would be reducing overnight coverage beginning March 1st.
While the Mayor has already accepted this grant in December, the City Council President Dan Guin clarified that the Council would be “accepting the funds and expensing the funds.”
According to Finance Director Diana Schindler the grant is a “multi-year funding commitment” as the grant only covers some of the cost of hiring three new officers and paying their salaries over the next three years. Additionally, the city must keep the officers on for at least one year after the grant expires otherwise all grant funds may need to be repaid.
The grant was awarded in October 2022 by the Department of Justice’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, COPS Hiring program as part of the $139 million in funding awarded to 180 departments throughout the country.
“As law enforcement agencies across the nation continue to experience recruitment and retention challenges, we are proud to provide these resources to help alleviate those challenges confronting the profession,” said COPS Office Acting Director Robert Chapman.
Read more about the COPS Hiring program here.