By Ed Somers
July 14, 2003

The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, State and the Judiciary approved its FY 2004 funding bill on July 9 which provides a total of $20.3 billion for the Department of Justice, $527 million more than FY 2003 and $1.15 billion above the Administration's request.

The House bill continues the downward trend in funding for the COPS program by providing just $253 million. This is down from $738 million in FY 2002, and $572 million in FY 2003. Of this total, no funding would be provided for the Universal Hiring Program, the COPS MORE program, police overtime, or the school resources officers program. These programs received a total of $200 million in FY 2003. There is also no funding for interoperability grants.

The $253 million includes $100 million for technology (usually earmarked), $60 million for meth programs (usually earmarked), $30 million for tribal law enforcement, $17 million for police integrity training, $20 million for training and technical assistance, and $26 million for management and administration.

The bill does provide level funding for the Local Law Enforcement Block Grant at $400 million, $500 million for the Byrne formula program, $462 million for juvenile delinquency prevention and accountability programs, $388 million for violence against women prevention and prosecution, $174 million to eliminate DNA analysis backlogs, and $400 million for the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program.

The Senate Appropriations Subcommittee has not yet acted on its FY 2004 funding bill, and action could come as early as the week of July 21.