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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMemo-City ManagerTO: FROM : •Johnny Martinez, P.E City Manager Manu Orosa Interir Chief of P *ce CITY OF MIAMI, FLORIDA INTER -OFFICE MEMORANDUM DATE : NOV 1 0 2011 SUBJECT : REFERENCES : ENCLOSURES: FILE : Emergency Item for Agenda 11/17/11 Commission Meeting • On September 30th, 2011, the City of Miami Police Department (MPD) was notified of a COPS Hiring Grant award, in the amount of $5,786,825, from the COPS Office, U.S. Department of Justice. In order to officially accept this grant, all award documents must be properly signed by City officials and returned to the COPS Office within 90 days from the date of notification. This gives the City of Miami until at the latest December 29th, 2011 to comply with all requirements for acceptance. Because there will only be two more Commission meetings before this deadline, MPD is respectfully requesting your approval to include the attached resolution at the November 17th, 2011, City Commission meeting. Please note that failure to comply with the stipulated deadline may result in the loss of grant funding. On May 25th, 2011, an application was submitted in response to an open solicitation issued by the COPS Office for new hires or rehires of career law enforcement officer to increase local community policing capacity and enhance crime prevention. At the time of application, due to its economic conditions, the City was projecting a $54 million dollars budget deficit for the -upcoming 2011-12 fiscal year. Given this scenario, it was anticipated that that there could be potential for lay off of police officers as was experienced in fiscal year 2009-10, when the City was faced with a $118 million dollar budget deficit and the possibility of City-wide lay-offs with as many as 177 officers subject to lay-off, some of which had actually received their termination notice. This situation prompted the need to ask for a change in the funding category under the 2009 COPS Hiring Grant awarded the City of Miami from new hires to rehires in an attempt to save officers' jobs that were scheduled to be laid off in FY2009-10. In an effort to be proactive and without knowing in advance of intervention, the COPS Hiring grant application requested $11,573,650 funding to rehire 50 police officers and was awarded $5,786,825 for the purpose of rehiring 25 police officers. This funding will cover the entry level salaries and allowable fringe benefits for 25 officers for a three-year period. At the end of the three year grant period the City is obligated to use General Fund dollars to retain these officers for an additional one year, as per the grant condition of award for retention. - r+.3 7.7 -4 n cz) =1r— c-0> r- • rn rn CD //- 0/42 rrie010 Johnny Martinez City Manager Page 2 For the FY2011-12 no lay-offs of police officers occurred. A balance budget was achieved without impacting services to the citizens within the City of Miami through concessions made by FOP union members and the other labor unions. In lieu of no lay-offs, the grant funds are no longer required to rehire officers and this necessitates a need to request a grant modification to allow the monies to be used to hire new officers; however before we can proceed with said request, the Department of Justice (grantor) requires that the City of Miami (awarded agency) first accept the awarded grant prior to requesting a modification. Additionally, the modification request must be submitted in accordance with procedures and approved by the Department of Justice (grantor) before utilization of any of grant funding. Due to the urgency of this matter, MPD is respectfully requesting your favorable consideration to accept the attached resolution for inclusion at the November 17th, 2011 City Commission meeting. Should you have any questions or need additional information regarding this request, please do not hesitate to contact me at 305-603-6100. MO:RB:MCS/jms Attachments