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Law enforcement funds

By Staff | Mar 18, 2009

Recently President Barack Obama announced that his administration was releasing $2 billion in Recovery Act funding for state and local law enforcement assistance through the Edward Byrne Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) Program, including over $13.1 million for the state of West Virginia.

With this being said, you should know that Tyler County will not receive one penny from this stimulus act.

However, there may be as much as $8.8 billion in additional funds available to law enforcement agencies through the “State Fiscal Stabilization Fund” (SFSF), an appropriation of $53.6 billion under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA).

Money in the so-called SFSF will be administered and distributed by the U. S. Department of Education, and while states must use 81.8 percent of SFSF funds for the “support of public elementary, secondary, and higher education, and, as applicable, early childhood education programs and services” there is language which gives states (and by extension their governors and legislatures) the latitude to spend the remaining 18.2 percent on “public safety and other government services.”

The Department of Education Web site says that while states can elect to use the remaining $8.8 billion in “flexible block grants” to avert budget cuts in basic state programs like child care and services for the elderly and people with disabilities, the money can also be put toward purchases and programs that support law enforcement.

States will receive SFSF allocations based on two formulas, both of which are tied to population. About 60 percent of each state’s allocation will be on the basis of their relative population of individuals between the ages of five and 24-years-old; the remaining monies allocated will be based on states’ relative shares of total U.S. population.

West Virginia will receive $48.5 in additional funding.