UPDATED: Of Cops and Recovery Funds

Yesterday, VP Joe Biden traveled to Philly to announce the awardees of grants from the Recovery bill designed to bolster funding for law enforcement in states, counties and cities. These funds, as I understand it, are meant to be a backstop for governments facing cuts in law enforcement due to budget shortfalls. Delaware was awarded $5M in these grants yesterday.

Today, the NJ reports:

Mayor James Baker, who declined to comment, said in a statement he would not commit to accepting the money and hiring the officers. He said city officials were reviewing their options.

A couple of things to remember about Baker’s reaction to this:

• The City of Wilmington did not layoff any cops — they did get a wage freeze AND did cancel an Academy.

• The last time Mayor Baker took money to increase the strength of the WPD (money from NCCo 5 or so years back), he took a lot of heat from people who were apoplectic about the increase to the budget 2 or 3 years back when the NCCo grant ran out. The apoplectic never acknowledged that the City had to take on those costs or cut back force strength.

The last point seems important here. If this grant is to pay for additional police officers or to stop layoffs of current staff, it makes sense to me to think about how you pay for these new personnel after the Federal money runs out. Certainly next year’s budget isn’t going to be any better than this one, so some caution in taking on additional commitments seems reasonable. They can’t keep asking for new taxes from residents.

That said, I am sympathetic to Kevin Kelley’s sentiment here:

“We’ve stayed the course for years and the course has needed to change for years,” Kelley said. “I’m at the point where I would not be in favor of accepting the money because I have no faith that the officers would be dedicated to community policing or a dedicated homicide unit.”

City Council and city residents are really clear that they want an expansion of the Community Policing program — and expansion that the Mayor and Chief Szczerba have been hugely resistant to. It would be nice to know that getting the WPD closer to full strength might also get us 24/7 Community Policing.

UPDATE: The Mayor’s office sent out a Community Advisory trying to clarify his position re: accepting this money:

The Mayor is NOT and has NOT rejected the COPS money. Nor did the Mayor or anyone in his office even imply that Wilmington is rejecting or “balking” at accepting COPS money. The report presents a FALSE impression that the Mayor is not interested in accepting the money.

And wanted to repeat the statement given to the NJ from the Mayor re: these funds:

“I express my thanks, on behalf of all of our citizens, to the President, Vice-President and the Congress for focusing the economic recovery program on the issue of public safety which is one of the top concerns facing cities today. Wilmington is very grateful to be awarded a grant under the COPS stimulus program.

Over the next few weeks we will determine what options are available to us for use of the money under the policies set forth in the COPS stimulus program.

At this time, I would hope to have a plan in place by early September concerning the use of the COPS stimulus grant which I will then share with City Council and all of our citizens.”

You can read the rest — basically the rest reminds people that they applied for these funds when they thought they would belaying people off. Since they didn’t the Mayor’s office wants it known that they are reviewing their options in using this grant money — not that he is rejecting the funds.

h/t for the update info to multiple anons. Thanks!