By Leslie Collins
Northeast News
December 28, 2011

Thanks to a recent grant award, the Kansas City Police Department will be able to hire 10 additional police officers.

City of Kansas City Council members approved the ordinance to accept the grant during their Dec. 15 meeting.

“Right now we’re under financial constraints like the rest of the city is. It’s the opportunity to fill 10 vacant positions,” said Eric Winebrenner of the Kansas City Police Department Budget Unit.

Currently, the police department has 92 vacancies, but about 44 of those are usually kept open for upcoming police academy graduates, Winebrenner said. KCPD plans to begin its next academy class Jan. 17.

Awarded by the U.S. Department of Justice, the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) Hiring Program (CHP) aims to help police departments hire additional officers, who may not have been hired due to the current state of the economy. KCPD will also utilize its previously awarded COPS Hiring Recovery Program (CHRP) grant, which has four positions to be filled, bringing the total number of new officers to 14.

The $1.7 million CHP grant will be used to fund 10 officer’s salaries for three years, which includes annual salary increases. The city is required to retain the officers for at least one year after the grant ends.