Cities, Officials Push Back Against COPS Funding Ban

As the Economic Recovery Grants Center recently reported, more than two-dozen police departments across the country have been barred from receiving Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) grant funding appropriated by the Recovery Act. Due to a variety of fiscal mismanagement and programmatic violations stemming from earlier COPS grants, the departments in question have incurred three-year funding bans, which prevent them from applying for a share of the $1 billion in COPS hiring grants contained in the economic stimulus.

However, the funding ban isn’t going unchallenged. Sen. Robert Menendez, D-NJ, wrote a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder pleading the case of the Camden, NJ, and Newark, NJ, police departments, both of which are currently barred from COPS funding. Noting that both departments committed the violations in questions when administering COPS grants in the 1990s, on the watch of city administrations that have since been replaced, Menendez asked Attorney General Holder to consider an “extended repayment plan” to allow Camden and Newark to repay the funds they owe gradually and regain eligibility for this year’s round of COPS grants.

But as the Camden CourierPostonline reported today, Department of Justice officials are unlikely to consider Menendez’s proposal to lift the ban. DOJ spokesman Corey Ray was quoted as saying, “With this ban in place you don’t get past Go.” Ray separately told the Economic Recovery Grants Center that the COPS office has had constructive discussions with both Camden and Newark to rectify the situation, but so far, no solutions have been reached that would end the funding band.