Bush’s Budget Proposal Could Hurt Local Law Enforcement Agencies
WASHINGTON, Feb. 10 – President George W. Bush’s proposed budget cuts to programs that offer grants to hire new police officers and update technology are concerning local police departments.
Barnstable Deputy Police Chief Craig Tamash said Bush’s proposed cuts would place a heavy burden on the area because “the towns just cannot supplement that funding; they just don’t have it.”
If approved by Congress, the proposed fiscal year 2006 budget would cut the Community Orientated Policing Services, or COPS program, from $499 million to $22 million. The program, which offers grants to states and local agencies to help hire police officers, has awarded Massachusetts $215.8 million since 1994, said Gilbert Moore, the press secretary for the U.S. Department of Justice COPS office.
Moore said the money has added 3,032 law enforcement officers, helped place resource officers in schools and purchased crime-fighting technology such as computers for squad cars.
The Barnstable Police Department used a $125,000 grant received in April 1999 to place a new school resource officer in Barnstable High School.
An additional $15,000 grant received last September is being used to increase security in local schools, Tamash said.
He added that funding was “sorely needed” in the past and over eight or nine years 17 officers were added through COPS grants.
Tamash said another proposed budget cut would eliminate a program Barnstable has used in the past for technological advances such as cameras, computers and upgraded radio systems.
“It’s not a program that had universal support but it’s been very, very helpful for us,” he said.
Bush has proposed to kill the Local Law Enforcement Block Grants program, which provides funding for all 50 states and can be used for various areas such as personnel and technology. In fiscal year 2004 the program received $115 million.
Tamash said the funding “has been slowly diminishing,” and according to the program’s website, Barnstable’s funding has decreased each year since 1999. Barnstable received $252,078 in 1999 and in 2004 the department received $34,783.
Harwich Police Chief William Mason called the proposed funding cuts “disgusting,” adding that it has taken “away my ability to do the proactive work, crime rate goes right back up and we go back into a response mode.”
“To say I’m upset about it, you better believe it, because I know that I have police officers and staff that could do a much better job of protecting this community if they were just allowed to do it,” he said.
Mason cited statistics from when funding was used to take a more preventative approach as an example of the positive effect the increased funding had on the crime rate. He said there were 444 serious crimes committed in 2000, the year they began using funding for preventative programs, and since then there have been fewer serious crimes..
In 2001 there were 433 serious crimes, in 2002 there were 336 and in 2003 there were 299, Mason said.
The funding began to diminish in 2004, Mason said, and the number of serious crimes increased to 467 that year.
“The visible presence and active communications of police officers are the single best deterrent of crime, period,” he said. “It beats deadbolts, it beats bars on windows, it beats alarm systems, it beats security companies, it beats everything. It’s the one single thing that has never been proven not to reduce crime rate.”
Mason said the proposed federal funding cuts are coming at a difficult time for the community, with funding being cut at the state level as well.
“We’re getting the wham from the state in reduced state funded grants, reduced everything there and then on top of that the federal government has come across and nailed us too,” he said.
The Harwich Police Department used an $118,586 COPS grant received in September 2000 to hire a school resource officer.
The Sandwich Police Department also hired two school resource officers with a $250,000 grant received in September 2000. The department also received a $50,000 Secure Our Schools grant last September through the COPS program.
Steve Schwadron, spokesman for Rep. Bill Delahunt, said while it is difficult to “say with certainty” how the proposed cut would affect specific towns, its popularity locally makes it hard to cut.
“The COPS program is one of the best investments we have made in public health and safety and the reviews locally have been terrific,” Schwadron said. “It would be foolish to discard that.”
Sen. John Kerry, in a statement released by his office, said Bush’s proposed budget reached “new lows of fiscal irresponsibility while slashing and eliminating investments that help America’s communities.”
More than $11.3 billion has been allocated nationwide through the COPS program since it was started in 1994, adding more than 118,768 police officers, according to the program’s website.
Massachusetts has received about $34 per person since 1994, compared to $55.31 in New Hampshire, $50.22 in Vermont, $27.22 in Rhode Island, $26.24 in Connecticut and $19.34 in Pennsylvania. Indiana, which according to the 2000 U.S. Census Bureau reports has a similar population to Massachusetts, has received $19.34 per person.
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