Law enforcement equipment and computer software purchases

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 city of Pasco will serve as the fiscal agent for the Recovery Act Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) award in the amount of $102,581. They will share the funds with Franklin County. In a disparate situation the units of local government must apply for an award with a single, joint application. Each jurisdiction's allocation will be used for activities and projects that will provide meaningful and measurable outcomes consistent with the goals of the Recovery Act.

The city of Pasco and Franklin County will address four specific equipment needs for their law enforcement agencies. The first area of need is the ability to communicate with other law enforcement agencies in the region on the 800 MHz radio frequency, especially in critical or tactical situations where coordination of multiple agencies is vital to the success of the operation. The second need is to replace the aging handguns, magazines, night sights, holsters, and magazine pouches issued to the city police officers for duty use with new equipment. Next is the need to replace the rifles, electronic sights, and rifle lights used by the city police officers who are members of the regional tactical response team (SWAT) with new equipment that is compatible with equipment used by the rest of the regional team. Last is the need to purchase a software link to allow transfer of case information directly from the law enforcement records management system to the Franklin County Prosecutor's case management system. The software link will reduce the amount of staff time required to manually retrieve data from the law enforcement records management system and enter the data into the prosecutor's case management system.

NCA/NCF