No stimulus funds for Sheriff's Office

Carson City Sheriff Ken Furlong was disappointed Tuesday to find that his department had been denied funds from $1 billion in stimulus money distributed to 1,000 agencies nationwide. Four law enforcement agencies in Nevada received funds.

"Taxpayers don't want to pay for it and the government doesn't want to fund it, either," Furlong said.

His office was among 7,000 offices across the U.S. that applied for a portion of the $1 billion stimulus money offered by the Department of Justice.

Furlong said that with the creation of a Special Enforcement Team, three deputies were taken off the patrol schedule to work special assignments. The stimulus money would have gone toward hiring three patrol deputies.

"As hopeful as we were for some grant funded positions, this grant for three officers failed to meet the cut," Furlong wrote in an e-mail to City Manager Larry Werner. "We still have one (grant) pending (for) a regional gang enforcement unit."

Four Nevada law enforcement agencies will receive about $5 million combined to fund 18 officers under the grants.

Larry Cooley, police chief of the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony, was thrilled to learn his small agency will be getting one extra officer, thanks to the grant awarded his department.

"We applied for three positions, and we're very grateful to get one," Cooley said. "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.

Reno Police Chief Michael Poehlman said the department has been unable to fill 47 positions because of budget cuts.

Sparks applied for 20 positions, and received $1.9 million to fund six, Sparks Police Chief Steve Asher said.

"Fourteen years ago we had 1.37 officers per 1,000 population," Asher said. Since then, the city's population has grown by 35,000 to about 90,000, while the ratio has dropped to 1.22 officers per 1,000.

The national average, he said, is 1.8 officers.

"For us to meet that we'd have to hire about 58 officers," said Asher, adding his department has 109 patrol officers, down from 116 a year ago.

The Nye County sheriff's office was awarded about $216,000 for one officer over three years.

Under terms of the federal funding, each agency must fund the positions on their own for a fourth year after the grant money expires.

Nevada's largest law enforcement agency, Las Vegas police, did not apply for grant money.

The Washoe County sheriff's office also did not receive funding, but it was not clear whether it had applied for money.