2015 COPS Hiring Program

Strengthening Community Policing by Hiring Officers 

 Fact Sheet

The COPS Hiring Program (CHP) is designed to advance public safety through community 

policing by addressing the full-time sworn officer needs of state, local, and tribal law 

enforcement agencies nationwide. Approximately $113 million in grant funding was 

appropriated for this initiative through the FY 2015 appropriations act. CHP provides funds 

directly to law enforcement agencies to hire new or rehire career law enforcement officers and 

to increase their community policing capacity and crime prevention efforts.

The FY 2015 CHP grant program was an open solicitation. All local, state, and tribal law 

enforcement agencies that have primary law enforcement authority were eligible to apply.

Supporting Local Law Enforcement

Twenty years after the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 was signed 

into law, the COPS Office continues to support the efforts of law enforcement agencies 

across the country as they develop creative and innovative ways to deal with long-standing 

community problems and public safety issues. To date, the COPS Office has funded the 

addition of more than 125,000 officers to more than 13,000 state, local, and tribal law 

enforcement agencies to advance community policing in small and large jurisdictions across 

the nation.

CHP is one of several hiring programs developed by the COPS Office since its inception 

to support law enforcement. This is particularly important in the current economy as state, 

local, and tribal law enforcement agencies embrace the challenges of keeping communities 

safe while maintaining sufficient sworn personnel levels.

Grant Program Funding Provisions

In FY 2015, the COPS Office awarded more than $113 million in CHP grants to 209 law 

enforcement agencies to hire or rehire 915 full-time career law enforcement officers. CHP 

grants provide up to 75 percent of the approved entry-level salaries and fringe benefits of 

full-time officers for a 36-month grant period, with a minimum 25 percent local cash match 

requirement and a maximum federal share of $125,000 per officer position. These grants may 

be used on or after the official grant award start date to (1) hire new officer positions, which 

includes filling existing officer vacancies that are no longer funded in an agency’s budget; (2) 

rehire officers laid off by any jurisdiction as a result of state, local, or Bureau of Indian Affairs 

(BIA) budget cuts; or (3) rehire officers who were, at the time of grant application, scheduled 

to be laid off (by the applicant's jurisdiction) on a specific future date as a result of state, local, 

or BIA budget cuts.

The COPS Office granted waivers of some or all of an applicant’s local cash match 

requirement. Requests for waivers were evaluated during the application review process based 

on a demonstration of severe fiscal distress.

U.S. Department of Justice

Office of Community Oriented Policing Services

www.cops.usdoj.gov

Below are a variety of resources to better enable 

law enforcement agencies to recruit, hire, and 

retain officers.

 Innovations in Police Recruitment and 

Hiring—Hiring in the Spirit of Service

Discusses how agencies met their goals of 

hiring service-oriented recruits, the challenges 

encountered, and lessons learned. http://ric-zaiinc.com/ric.php?page=detail&id=COPS-P090.

 Law Enforcement Recruitment Toolkit 

Developed by the International Association of 

Chiefs of Police (IACP), this toolkit comprises 

four reports, each focusing on a different area 

of recruitment. This toolkit is one step among 

many in addressing the recruitment needs of the 

field. The issues of police recruitment, selection, 

and retention are critical to the advancement 

of community policing and the policing 

profession in general. http://ric-zai-inc.com/ric.

php?page=detail&id=COPS-P171.

 Discover Policing This website offers first-hand 

descriptions of law enforcement work and provides 

opportunities for potential recruits and agencies to 

connect. www.discoverpolicing.org.

 Police Recruitment and Retention for the New 

Millennium Summarizes for police practitioners 

lessons on recruiting and retaining diverse, 

effective workforces. It provides a means for 

local officials to identify what has been tried 

elsewhere and what might be applicable in their 

own communities. http://ric-zai-inc.com/ric.

php?page=detail&id=COPS-P199.

 Today’s Police and Sheriff Recruits Provides 

the results of a recruit assessment conducted 

by RAND, including findings about both the 

overall sample and those focused on groups 

often of particular interest to law enforcement 

recruitment professionals. http://ric-zai-inc.com/

ric.php?page=detail&id=COPS-W0592.
September 2015 (revised)

CHP grant funding is based on an agency’s entry-level full-time sworn officer salary 

and fringe benefits at the time of grant application. Any additional costs for salaries and 

fringe benefits higher than entry level are the responsibility of the grantee agency. All 

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

as reported in their application, up to a maximum of 15 officers for agencies that serve a 

population less than 1 million and up to a maximum of 25 officers for agencies that serve a 

population of 1 million or more. In addition, the request of any agency with a sworn force 

strength less than or equal to 20 was capped at one officer.

The COPS Office statutory nonsupplanting requirement mandates that CHP funds be used 

to supplement (increase) state, local, or BIA funds that would have been dedicated toward 

sworn officer positions even if federal funding had not been awarded. CHP grant funds must 

not be used to supplant (replace) local funds that agencies otherwise would have devoted to 

sworn officer hiring. The hiring or rehiring of officers under CHP must be in addition to, 

and not in lieu of, officers who otherwise would have been hired or rehired with state, local, 

or BIA funds.

At the conclusion of 36 months of federal funding, grantees must retain all sworn officer 

positions awarded under the CHP grant for a minimum of 12 months. The retained CHPfunded position(s) should be added to the grantee’s law enforcement budget with state or 

local funds, over and above the number of locally funded positions that would have existed in 

the absence of the grant. Applicants were required to affirm in their CHP grant application 

that their agency plans to retain any additional officer positions awarded following the 

expiration of the grant and identify their planned source(s) of retention funding.

Highlights of FY 2015 CHP

Starting in 2011, CHP has allowed agencies to hire officers to address specific problem areas. 

Under FY 2015 CHP, additional consideration was given to agencies that selected one of the 

following community policing problem/focus areas: 

 Homeland security: To include protecting critical infrastructures, information intelligence problems, and other homeland security problems. 

 Homicide/gun violence: The COPS Office supports the attorney general’s priority goal 

of reducing violent crime, especially if it is gun related. 

 School-based policing through School Resource Officers (SRO): Grantees that 

requested officer position(s) in order to deploy SROs must deploy all their officer positions as SROs. The COPS Office requires all grantees who chose “School-Based Policing 

through SROs” as their community policing problem to provide contact information for 

each school partner where they intend to deploy SROs. These grantees are also required 

to submit to the COPS Office a Memorandum of Understanding between the law 

enforcement agency and their school partner(s) within 90 days of the date shown on the 

award congratulatory letter.

 Building trust: To include issues of fairness and impartiality, transparency, and respect 

and other trust-related topics. 

CHP grantees who chose one of the community policing problem/focus areas listed above are 

not allowed to change the problem area post-award.

Contact the COPS Office

For more information about the COPS Hiring Program, please call the COPS Office 

Response Center at 800-421-6770 or visit COPS Online at www.cops.usdoj.gov.

 Assigning Police Officers to Schools Nearly 

half of all public schools have assigned police 

officers, commonly referred to as school 

resource officers (SRO) or education officers. This 

publication summarizes the typical duties of 

SROs, synthesizes the research pertaining to their 

effectiveness, and presents issues for communities 

to bear in mind when considering the adoption 

of an SRO model. http://ric-zai-inc.com/ric.

php?page=detail&id=COPS-P182.

 School Safety (CD-ROM) Provides more than 110 

documents and links related to school violence, 

gangs, bullying, and property crime as a resource 

to local policymakers, law enforcement, school 

administrators, parents, and students. Bullying, 

stalking, and other interpersonal crimes affect 

our nation’s children at an alarming rate. As such, 

School Safety provides resources on bullying and 

interpersonal violence, youth violence prevention, 

alcohol and substance abuse, community 

partnerships, property crime and nuisance 

violations, school resource officers, and emergency 

preparedness and management. http://ric-zai-inc.

com/ric.php?page=detail&id=COPS-CD010.

Additional COPS Office publications and resources 

are posted online at www.cops.usdoj.gov.