Ronan awarded police department bond, but needs matching funds
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RONAN – Police Chief Ken Weaver might lose a Cops Hiring Grant he was recently awarded for $124,311.
The U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Community Orientated Policing Services selected Ronan’s police department as one of four in the state to receive a matching grant, but if the town can’t provide matching funds, they have to turn down the grant.
The chief asked for a waiver on the matching fees but to his surprise Ronan didn’t qualify, so he proposed a mill levy to provide matching funds to secure the grant. “If the levy doesn’t pass, we might have to turn down the grant,” he said.
The Public Safety Mill Levy set to run in the Nov. 8 election would be spent to hire an additional police officer to provide full-time coverage for the town. As it is, officers juggle training schedules, earned vacation, and military service leave, so they are often short staffed.
The funds would help develop a competitive salary ladder to keep officers in the area long term and purchase public safety equipment like uniforms, bulletproof vests, and a patrol vehicle.
The grant comes with a few other requirements besides community support. Chief Weaver needed to choose a problem within the community and focus on improving it to receive the grant. He chose to focus on community relations to help heal the public’s perception of the department from problems in the past.
To achieve that goal, one of the officers within the department would be assigned to interact with the public on a regular basis, help develop a Neighborhood Watch and coordinate a local National Night Out for people to get to know their neighbors, which gets people looking out for each other.
The grant would also help pay for a project to bring volunteers into the department and start another program to get teens and young adults involved to in essence job shadow.
“We want to reach them at an early age and create a bond with law enforcement so we don’t have problems later,” he said.
The grant and matching funds would be divided into a four-year project. The mill levy would increase the tax on a home of $50,000 by $37.12. The tax on a $100,000 home would increase by $74.25, and a $200,000 home would be taxed an additional $148.50. For more information, contact Chief Weaver at 406-676-0223 or rpdchief@ ronan.net
