Swampscott eyes grant for additional police

SWAMPSCOTT – The town is looking into applying for a Department of Justice grant that could help put more police officers on the street.Police Chief Ronald Madigan said the grant would pay the current entry level salary and benefits for new police officers for a period of three years.Madigan said the DOJ Office of Community Orientated Policing Services announced grants are being made available under a hiring recovery program.Madigan said the grant applications would be made available to police departments at the end of March and the town is looking into whether it is feasible to apply.Madigan said the department is down four officers and the grant could be used to pay for newly hired officers including officers hired to fill existing unfunded vacancies. He said it could also be used to rehire officers who have been laid off or those scheduled to be laid off due to budget cuts.Madigan said the grant would pay 100 percent of the salary and benefits for three years.”Not having to match any of the funds for three years is a positive thing,” he said. “But there is a retention clause and that hasn’t been spelled out yet. The information I have at this point still lacks some details.”Even though the department is down four officers, Madigan said if he applies for the grant he would probably apply for funding for only one position due to the retention clause.”It would be nice to get back to full staffing levels,” he said, “But should it make sense to apply for this grant I probably will only ask for funding one position because I worry about the retention requirement given the fiscal constraints the town is under.”This would not be the first time the department has taken advantage of grant program. Madigan said in the 1990s the town had five officers funded through a similar grant. He said in 2001 the town hired a school resource officer through the grant program.