Town of Milford Recovery Act JAG Program

This grant program is authorized by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5) (the 'Recovery Act') and by 42 U.S.C. 3751(a). The stated purposes of the Recovery Act are: to preserve and create jobs and promote economic recovery; to assist those most impacted by the recession; to provide investments needed to increase economic efficiency by spurring technological advances in science and health; to invest in transportation, environmental protection, and other infrastructure that will provide long-term economic benefits; and to stabilize state and local government budgets, in order to minimize and avoid reductions in essential services and counterproductive state and local tax increases. The Recovery Act places great emphasis on accountability and transparency in the use of taxpayer dollars.

Among other things, it creates a new Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board and a new website ' Recovery.gov ' to provide information to the public, including access to detailed information on grants and contracts made with Recovery Act funds.

The Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) Program funded under the Recovery Act is the primary provider of federal criminal justice funding to state and local jurisdictions. Recovery JAG funds support all components of the criminal justice system, from multi-jurisdictional drug and gang task forces to crime prevention and domestic violence programs, courts, corrections, treatment, and justice information sharing initiatives. Recovery JAG funded projects may address crime through the provision of services directly to individuals and/or communities and by improving the effectiveness and efficiency of criminal justice systems, processes, and procedures.

The town of Milford will use their Recovery Act JAG award to support the Milford Public Safety Communications Center. The public safety communications center will be moved from the back of police headquarters to the front office/lobby area. This will allow the public direct access to the public safety communications center. The Town of Milford will upgrade their communications system and will hire full-time civilian public safety dispatchers who will be on duty twenty-four hours a day, each day of the year. This will ensure that police officers and firefighters will not be removed from community and emergency services to fulfill the responsibilities of civilian public safety dispatchers. The current police officers working as dispatchers will be reassigned from the front desk area to neighborhood based patrol services in the community.

NCA/NCF