Sarasota, FL: The City of Sarasota was notified today by the United States Department of Justice that it will receive an estimated $2.2 million grant to retain nine Sarasota police officers. “This is great news,” said City Manager Robert Bartolotta. “This is fantastic. It will go a long way with our budget. To apply for 10 officers and to get 90 percent of our request is really positive,” said Bartolotta.
The grant for SPD is estimated to be $2,281,545. It will be for a 3-year period and must be used to create or retain police officer positions. The official amount of the grant will be announced in an award document in early September.
The federal government is distributing $1 billion under the grant program  Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) Hiring Recovery Program, to hire or retain law enforcement officers during the economic downturn. The grant program was very competitive. It is estimated that one of every seven law enforcement agencies which applied for grants will receive funding. In Florida, 66 law enforcement agencies will receive an estimated $87.8 million to hire or retain 428 officers.
Contingencies were placed in the fiscal year 2009-10 proposed budget in case the Sarasota Police Department did not receive COPS funding.
For more information, please contact:
Jan
Thornburg, Public Information Officer (941) 954-2613
jan.thornburg@sarasotagov.com
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