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FOR IMMEDIATE
RELEASE:
Saves 15 Police Jobs Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer today announced that the City of Orlando has been awarded a COPS Federal Hiring Recovery grant through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that will allow the City to retain 15 police officers whose positions are scheduled to be eliminated on October 1st under the current budget proposal. “This is extremely positive news,” said Mayor Dyer. “This is a great example of how we are leveraging our partnerships with the federal government to help our community endure these tough economic times.” The 3.1 million dollar grant will fund salaries and benefits for 15 police officers for a period of three years. Under the award guidelines, the officers funded with this grant are required to be retained for a fourth year. Currently, there are 30 OPD officer positions identified for deletion in the budget for fiscal year 09/10. Ten of those 30 positions are vacant. An additional seven (7) positions are individuals who are still in the police academy. This means the COPS grant will fund the remaining 13 filled officer positions along with two other filled positions. The City of Orlando is also pursuing a similar grant that would restore planned cuts to fire personnel Federal guidelines for those grant opportunities are scheduled to be released within the next few weeks. An award will likely take place later this fall. *More information on the COPS FEDERAL HIRING RECOVERY PROGRAM Earlier this year the Department of justice modified
the rules for the COPS grant program so local governments could use this
funding to retain police officers. (In the past the funding was awarded
only for departments who wanted to bolster personnel in their
departments) *Click here to view a copy of the award letter from the United States Department of Justice. |
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