COPS Reauthorization Passes Senate Judiciary Committee
By Ed Somers
April 15, 2002
By a unanimous vote on April 11th, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved a bill (S. 924) to reauthorize the COPS program at a level of $1.15 billion each year through FY 2007. The bill, entitled the "Providing Reliable Officers, Technology, Education, Community Prosecutors, and Training In Our Neighborhoods Act of 2001", or the "Protection Act," was sponsored by Senator Joseph Biden (DE) along with 51 other Senators, and is supported by the Conference of Mayors.
Of the total authorization, $600 million is for police hiring grants, $350 million is for police technology grants, and $200 million is for community prosecutor grants.
Senator Biden said, "I am pleased the Judiciary Committee favorably reported my COPS reauthorization bill. In a time of increased security demands on our cities and towns, we need to be providing more resources to our police departments, not less. COPS is a proven program that works, and I look forward to the bill's consideration by the full Senate."
Conference President New Orleans Mayor Marc H. Morial said, "Mayors strongly believe that the COPS program has been a major factor in the reduction of crime in cities across the nation, and we support reauthorization with these important changes, as well as full funding."
In addition to reauthorizing the COPS program, the bill would make several important changes supported by the Conference including:
up to 25 percent of the police hiring grants could be used for police overtime; and
up to 50 percent of the police hiring grants could be targeted specifically for the retention of police officers to "grantees in good standing, with preference to those that demonstrate financial hardship or severe budget constraints that impacts the entire local budget and may result in the termination of employment for officers."
The Conference of Mayors recently met with Senator Biden and testified before his Subcommittee on the need to continue COPS.
While this bill would reauthorize COPS, the Administration is currently proposing to cut the program by 80 percent through the appropriations process—down to $164 million in FY 2003.
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