5 Maine police agencies to share in $625K in grant awards

By Dawn Gagnon
Bangor Daily News

BANGOR, Maine — Five law enforcement agencies from Fort Kent to Norway will be able to hire new officers, thanks to a total of $625,000 in funding awards from the federal Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, also known as COPS, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced Monday.

The funding headed to four Maine municipalities and one county is part of more than $107 million being awarded nationally through the COPS Hiring Program, or CHP.

The list of this year’s grantees consists of the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Department and the municipal police departments in Fort Kent, Norway, Old Town and Winslow.

CHP provides grants to state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies to hire or rehire community policing officers. The program covers the cost for salaries and benefits for officer and deputy hires for three years.

Chief Deputy Naldo Gagnon of the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office said the agency will use its grant to provide a school resource officer for the town of Gray, which does not have its own police department.

Fort Kent Police Chief Thomas Pelletier said the COPS money will allow the town to add an officer, increasing the size of the police department by 25 percent. The added manpower will help address a noticeable increase in calls for assistance over the past few years, including assistance with security at Northern Maine Medical Center, which serves the region and responds to calls from the University of Maine at Fort Kent and at the Canadian border.

Priority consideration was given this year to agencies that selected any of the Building Trust focus areas or School Based Policing through School Resource Officers, which were among the recommendations put forth in the president’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing.

Since 1995, COPS has invested over $14 billion to advance community policing, including grants awarded to more than 13,000 state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies to fund the hiring and rehiring of about 127,000 officers and provide a variety of knowledge resource products including publications, training and technical assistance.

For the entire list of grantees and additional information about the 2015 COPS Hiring Program, visit www.cops.usdoj.gov.

Copyright 2015 the Bangor Daily News