A $1.9 million grant, approved Tuesday and coming from American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) stimulus funds, will pay for the officers.
Police department spokesman Rocky Triplett said that the department had not set a date for when the officers would be hired.
“As soon as we can get going we will,” Triplett said, adding that while the money had been approved, it might not be deposited into city coffers until after October.
The new officers could reinvigorate dormant community programs such as DARE or community education, Sparks Police Chief Steve Asher said when the city applied for the funding in March.
The new police would also bolster below-average police staffing levels.
According to a March 2 statement from Asher, the minimum staffing levels for police officers have not increased in 14 years. In that time, Sparks population has grown by 32,427 people. Now, the city is watched over by 1.22 officers per 1,000 people. The national average, he said, is 1.8 officers per thousand.
“Patrol and community services are where we are the shortest,” Triplett said.
However, the new officers could come with some financial risk to the city.
After three years, the grant funding will be gone and the city of Sparks will have to pay for the officers themselves — whether they have the money or not.
According to Triplett, the grant money will pay for the baseline hiring of the officers and will not pay for annual merit increases or additional training or benefits.
“Step raises for longevity, those are all costs that we will have to incur as a city,” Triplett said. “Those incurred costs, we will have to incrementally absorb into our budget.”
Also, according to the terms of the grant, the positions cannot be eliminated once the funding runs out. The department would have to maintain its newly increased staffing levels.
“If an officer retires, we cannot hold that position back and say now we have some extra money,” Sparks Deputy Police Chief Steve Keefer told the City Council in March. “Once you commit to this, you have to stick with it.”
According to Triplett, the city has set aside future funding for the new officers.
The grant is funded through the office of Community Oriented Policing Services under the COPS Hiring Recovery Program.
Four Nevada law enforcement agencies were awarded grants on Tuesday, including the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony and Reno Police Department. The total of all grants was about $5 million funding 18 new officers.
Larry Cooley, police chief of the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony, was tickled to learn his small agency will be getting one extra officer.
"We applied for three positions, and we're very grateful to get one," Cooley told the Associated Press. "It's going to mean a lot to us. We're short-handed, and there's a lot of times we only have one person on duty."
The largest amount, nearly $2.7 million, was awarded to the Reno Police Department to pay salary and benefits for 10 officers over three years.
"This will be terrific," said Reno Police Chief Michael Poehlman, whose agency received funding for all positions requested.
Over the past two years, he said the department has been unable to fill 47 positions because of budget cuts.
Elsewhere in Nevada, The Nye County sheriff's office was awarded about $216,000 for one officer.
Nevada's largest law enforcement agency, Las Vegas police, did not apply for grant money, a spokesman said.
The Washoe County sheriff's office also did not receive funding, but it was not immediately clear whether it had applied for money.
Sandra Chereb of the Associated Press contributed to this report.
Steven Gualt
City Of Sparks