U.S. funds won’t be panacea for police Valley cops

The money will not add any officers to the Youngstown department.

By JOHN W. GOODWIN JR. and ED RUNYAN

Youngstown officials say an influx of state and federal grant money will help keep staffing at current levels in the police department.

A lawyer representing police officers in Warren, however, says the announcement Tuesday that the city’s police department will receive stimulus money to bring back three officers from layoff is “terribly disappointing” — and voids the four-year wage freeze officers approved in April.

Youngstown has been awarded $1.8 million from the Federal Recovery Act Grant Program to Support Law Enforcement.

In addition to Warren receiving funding to bring back three officers for a total award of $605,331, Niles also got funding for two officers ($468,382,) Girard got money for one officer ($229,428), and Newton Falls got money for one officer ($195,090).

Ohio’s three largest cities, Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati, each received funding to pay for 50 officers, or roughly $12 million for each city.

The U.S. Department of Justice Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) Hiring Recovery Program provides funding to hire additional officers, bring back laid-off officers or prevent the layoff of officers. The federal grants will be awarded to 1,046 law enforcement agencies from all 50 states, including more than $79.2 million in grants to fund the hiring and rehiring of 336 law enforcement officers in Ohio.

The money will provide 100 percent of the approved salary and benefits for officers hired under the program for three years. All police departments receiving the grants will then be required to retain the grant-funded positions for a fourth year.

Officials say it will likely be several months before the money is released to the qualifying cities.

Randall Weltman, who has negotiated two labor agreements between the police officers and Warren this year, said the federal officials who controlled funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 apparently didn’t take into account how badly the economy has affected Warren compared to many other Ohio cities.

“To me, Warren is a poster child of the recession,” Weltman said. “This is terribly disappointing. Of all the places [in Ohio], we got a lot less than a lot of places that are less needy.”

Warren Mayor Michael O’Brien said the city learned a couple months ago that the funding would be capped at a point that would prevent any city from getting enough money to bring back more than 5 percent of its present staffing.

In Warren’s case, 5 percent of its 60-person department was three officers.

Warren Mayor Michael O’Brien said he wishes more weight would have been given to distressed cities.

“I’m grateful we are going to be awarded three officers to either prevent layoff or bring back three from layoff, but I’m disappointed it’s not 15,” he said.

The question of whether any of the currently laid-off officers will be brought back with the money has not been determined, O’Brien said.

On Jan. 1, 20 Warren police officers, 15 firefighters (four of whom were unfilled vacancies) and nine other city employees were laid off to offset a $1.2 million budget shortfall.

Since then, the city laid off several more employees and received concessions to offset another $1.6 million shortfall.

On April 10, the union representing the police officers agreed to a four-year wage freeze for 2010 through 2013 and a new wage scale for officers being paid with COPS money, but Weltman said Tuesday that agreement is now void because it was contingent upon the city receiving enough COPS money for 10 officers.

He said the union will need to go back into negotiations with the city for a new agreement sometime this fall.

Youngstown Police Chief Jimmy Hughes said the money will not bring additional officers into the department, but will prevent drastic reductions in the police force. The department now has 177 police officers.

“We had three options when we applied. The first option was to hire new police officers. The second option was to call officers back who were laid off and the third option was to retain what we have,” said Hughes. “With the financial situation here we applied to sustain what we have.”

Hughes said the department has already been awarded enough funds from the federal government to retain nine police officers. The police department, Hughes said, asked for enough funding for 30 officers through the federal grant program, but received funding for nine.

Hughes said the Youngstown department is waiting on a state grant that would allow for the retention of about 10 officers. He said recipients of that award should be announced sometime this week or in the very near future. Hughes said the hope is that the city receives funding for all 10 police officers as requested.

The grant funding, Hughes said, is not a guarantee that no one in the department will be laid off, but it will mean the difference in the number of layoffs for the department in the near future.

“This is real important. It will be a major blow to the city if we don’t get it. We just don’t have the funds to pay for what we need to do,” he said.

Niles Police Chief Bruce Simeone said his department will grow from 35 officers to 37. The department downsized from 36 officers to 35 last spring because of financial issues but has held steady at 36 officers since about 1994.

Simeone said having two more officers — probably sometime in early 2010 — will allow the department to work more proactively by getting officers into the community, getting residents involved in community policing and increasing its attention to traffic and juvenile matters.