COPS Hiring Program (CHP)—How Decisions were 

Made to Allocate the $123 Million When More than 

$425 Million was Requested

The CHP solicitation opened on May 21, 2014, and all applications were originally required to be 

submitted by June 23, 2014. However, due to technical issues within the online application system, the 

submission deadline was extended until June 30, 2014 for agencies that had initiated but not submitted 

an application within the online system.

Ultimately, the COPS Office received applications from 1,296 law enforcement agencies requesting 

3,469 officer positions for $425,734,755 in federal funding.

The COPS Office focused on several priority areas for 

additional consideration

Military veterans

Under FY 2014 CHP, new hire officer positions are not required to be military veterans. However, as the 

COPS Office supports the attorney general’s commitment to hiring military veterans whenever possible, 

applicants who committed to hiring or rehiring at least one military veteran under CHP received 

additional consideration for FY 2014 CHP funding. A military veteran hire must have served on active 

duty for a period of at least 180 consecutive days, any part of which occurred on or after September 11, 

2001. In FY 2014, 121 agencies received funding with a commitment to hire or rehire at least one 

military veteran using CHP funding, for a total of 233 veterans.

School Resource Officers

Applicants who requested officer positions in order to deploy school resource officers (SROs) were 

required to choose the “School Based Policing through School Resource Officers” community policing 

problem area in their 2014 CHP application and likewise received additional consideration for FY 2014 

CHP funding. Agencies requesting multiple officer positions in order to deploy school resource officers 

must deploy all their funded officer positions as school resource officers.

Moreover, CHP grantees that chose this specific community policing problem area will not be allowed to 

change it post-award. CHP grantees who use CHP funding to deploy SROs will also be required to submit 

to the COPS Office the contact information for each school partner where they intend to deploy the 

SROs and to provide a Memorandum of Understanding between the CHP grantee and the school 

partner. In FY 2014, 79 agencies received funding for a total of 168 SRO positions.

Homicide and gun violence
The COPS Office supports the attorney general’s priority goal of reducing violent crime, especially if it is

gun related. Applicants who chose “Homicide” or “Gun Violence” as a problem area in their 2014 CHP 

application received additional consideration for CHP funding. Moreover, grantees that chose either of 

these specific community policing problem areas will not be allowed to change the problem area postaward. In FY 2014, 46 funded agencies selected either “Homicide” or “Gun Violence” as their 

jurisdiction’s problem area, committing to hire 400 officers to address these problems.

New priority areas for 2014: Homeland security and trust problems

New for 2014, applicants who chose either “Homeland Security” or “Trust Problems” as the problem 

area in their 2014 CHP application also received additional consideration for funding. “Homeland 

Security” issues include protecting critical infrastructures, information/intelligence concerns, and other 

homeland security problems, while “Trust Problems” includes issues surrounding fairness and 

impartiality, transparency, respect, and other trust-related problems. As with the problem areas 

mentioned previously, grantees that chose either of these specific community policing problem areas 

will not be allowed to change the problem area post-award. In FY 2014, 15 funded agencies selected 

“Homeland Security” as their jurisdiction’s problem area, committing to hire 56 officers to address these 

problems, and 26 agencies that selected “Trust Problems” received funding for 122 officers.

Additional consideration—non-problem area factors

Also new for 2014, additional consideration was given to applicants who had experienced an 

unanticipated catastrophic event as well as to those applicants with a neighborhood or other geographic 

area designated as a promise zone as part of the President’s Promise Zone Initiative. Ultimately, these 

non-problem area factors contributed to the selection of two grantees for four officers.

The COPS Office developed an application to meet the 

requirements of the law

The COPS Office developed an application for CHP funds that met the requirements of the statute and 

mission of the COPS Office to increase the ability of law enforcement to implement community policing 

strategies within the three primary elements of community policing: 1) problem-solving; 2) partnerships; 

and 3) organizational transformation.

The COPS Office balanced scoring indicators

To measure and compare the necessary scoring indicators, the COPS Office consulted with experts in the 

fields of policing, criminology, and public finance to develop appropriate application questions. 

Applicants were asked to submit information on such indicators as the following: 

• Reported crime for the previous three years

• Current commitment to community policing
• Planned community policing activities

• Changes in budget for law enforcement agencies and revenues for local governments

• Poverty and unemployment rates.

In asking a variety of fiscal health questions, the COPS Office focused on getting as complete a view as 

possible of the fiscal need of applicants through objective and verifiable indicators that all agencies, 

from rural communities to large cities, could accurately report.

The community policing philosophy engages in a proactive and systematic examination of identified 

problems that can be countered with effective responses. Applicants were asked to identify the specific 

community problem they wished to address with COPS funding.

Community policing relies heavily on partnerships and relationships between law enforcement and the 

community it serves. A number of questions were designed to examine an agency’s formation of 

partnerships, such as working with other public agencies, private organizations, or participation in 

regional law enforcement partnerships. Agencies were asked to identify the number and types of 

partnerships they intended to initiate or enhance in order to address their identified problem.

The COPS Office checked and double-checked, 

verifying the data applicants sent

The application system contains numerous built-in logic checks to help prevent the submission of

erroneous data. In addition, once the applications were submitted, specialists in the COPS Office 

immediately reviewed the data contained therein. The COPS Office reviewed more than 375 data points 

within each application. In some cases, the COPS Office contacted applicant agencies to verify 

information provided in their application. This data verification process, though time-consuming, was 

crucial to ensuring that all applicants were properly evaluated based on accurate and reliable economic, 

crime, and community policing data. This process included checking against available reported data such 

as the Uniform Crime Statistics reported annually to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The COPS Office developed a uniform system of 

evaluating the information that applicants submitted

Selection methodology

The COPS Office focused on balancing the applicant’s need for federal assistance (as measured by 

economic and fiscal health questions) with crime rates and the applicant’s current commitment to 

community policing and their proposed community policing strategy. For FY 2014, an applicant’s 

commitment to community policing and the strength of their overall community policing strategy were 

the basis for initial scoring. A minimum score was established for the community policing portion of the 

application. Thirty-six agencies that did not meet the score were removed from further consideration.
For the remaining applicants, fiscal need constituted 20 percent, crime 30 percent, and community 

policing 50 percent of the overall score. Additionally, models similar to those used in FYs 2011, 2012, 

and 2013 were used to determine the weight of the questions within each broad category. For example, 

within the 20 percent of the score allocated to the need for federal assistance, applicants were ranked 

on measures of recent economic conditions as well as those of systemic socioeconomic health. COPS 

Office staff followed up with applicants and reviewed publicly available data to ensure that the 

information was as error-free as possible before completing the ranking protocol.

Due to the high demand and limited funding available, only 215 of the 1,296 CHP requests were 

ultimately funded, which is only about 17% of the total number of agencies that submitted applications.

In addition, two long-standing statutory requirements designed to ensure national distribution of COPS 

Office funding had an impact on which applications were ultimately funded. First, the COPS Office must 

distribute half of all hiring funds to agencies serving populations of more than 150,000 and half to those 

serving populations of 150,000 or less. Second, by law, the COPS Office must ensure that at least one 

half of one percent of hiring funds ($607,651 for FY 2014) is allocated to each state or territory with 

eligible applicants. Although this ultimately means that sometimes a lower scoring applicant in one state 

receives funding ahead of a higher scoring applicant in another, this requirement helps ensure that 

smaller states and territories are not excluded from funding.

Capping methodology

All agencies’ requests were capped at no more than 5 percent of their actual sworn force strength as 

reported on the date of application. For agencies with more than 300 sworn officers, an additional cap 

was imposed so that agencies with a service population of 1 million or above were eligible to apply for 

up to 25 officer positions, while agencies with a service population less than 1 million were eligible to 

apply for up to 15 officer positions. The request of any agency with a sworn force strength less than or 

equal to 20 was capped at one officer.