FY26 COPS Hiring Program

The Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) is the component of the U.S. Department of Justice responsible for advancing the practice of community policing and supporting the Administration’s priority of Making America Safe Again by the nation’s state, local, territorial and Tribal law enforcement agencies through information and grant resources. The purpose of CHP is to fund law enforcement agencies to hire and/or rehire additional career sworn law enforcement officers/deputies in an effort to increase their community policing capacity and crime prevention efforts. Anticipated outcomes of CHP awards include engagement in planned community partnerships, implementation of projects to analyze and assess problems, implementation of changes to personnel and agency management in support of community policing, and increased capacity of agency to engage in community policing activities.

Eligible applicants are limited to established and operational local, state, territorial, and Tribal law enforcement agencies that have primary law enforcement authority. In addition, state and local governmental entities must comply with 8 U.S.C. §1373, which provides that state and local government entities may not prohibit, or in any way restrict, any government entity or official from sending to, receiving from, maintaining, or exchanging information regarding citizenship or immigration status, lawful or unlawful, of any individual with components of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security or any other federal, state or local government entity. This includes any prohibitions or restrictions imposed or established by a state or local government entity or official.

General criteria for selecting proposals are set forth in the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, Public Law 103-322. Additional Criteria may be developed by the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) and will be published in the Notice of Funding Opportunity application materials.

A minimum 25 percent local cost share or matching funds is required, which must be in the form of cash, unless a waiver is approved.This program has MOE requirements, see funding agency for further details. Funding under this program will support three years of officer or deputy salaries within a five-year period of performance to accommodate time needed for recruitment and hiring. Agencies must retain each CHP-funded position for a minimum of 12 months following the three years of funding for that position. The additional officer positions should be added to your agency�s law enforcement budget with state and/or local funds over and above the number of locally funded officer positions that would have existed in the absence of the award. Absorbing CHP-funded positions through attrition (rather than adding the extra positions to your budget with additional funding) does not meet the...

Fiscal year 2024: The COPS Hiring Program (CHP) is designed to reduce crime and advance public safety through community policing by providing direct support to state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies nationwide. CHP funding supports the hiring of career law enforcement officers to increase an agency's community policing capacity and crime prevention efforts. The FY 2024 CHP award program was an open solicitation. All local, state, and tribal law enforcement agencies having primary law enforcement authority were eligible to apply. The award selection process was highly competitive and based on a variety of factors including problem focus area, local crime data, an agencies' commitment to community policing, an agencies' demonstrated financial need, and statutory formulas. The COPS Office received 573 CHP applications during the open solicitation period from law enforcement agencies in nearly every state and U.S. territory. After careful review of all applications, the COPS Office made FY 2024 CHP awards to 235 state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies totaling $157,155,896 to support the hiring of 1,193 full-time officers and deputies (of whom 91 are school...