POLICE BOOST COMMUNITY PROGRAMS WITH GRANT MONEY

SOUTHINGTON -- The Southington police department wants the ability to
do more for the community than just respond to calls and make arrests.

To do that, they need to have the best vehicles with the most
up-to-date equipment for traffic enforcement. They must set up
sobriety checkpoints on holidays to ensure the safety of Southington
motorists. They require resource officers and drug education programs
in the schools. They want a victim advocate on staff to help the
abused find the help they need. They want to use bikes to patrol the
linear trails.

But these programs cost money and money in Southington is hard to come
by these days. So instead of relying on the town to come through, the
department has turned to aggressively pursuing state and federal grant
dollars in order to maintain the highest level of service at the
lowest possible cost to the town.

"We're trying to do more with less," Police Chief Jack Daly said.
"We're trying to get out into the community. But it's all about funding."

In the past two years alone, the department has secured more than
$75,000 in grants for things like drunk-driving enforcement and bike
patrols. In return, the town has only had to match less than $20,000
for those programs.

"That's less than the price of a police cruiser," said Capt. Greg
Simone, who serves as the department's main grant writer.

The state Department of Transportation has been the biggest source of
grant providers for the department, with Southington raking in more
than $57,000 from the DOT to go towards equipment like a 2003 Ford
Expedition and a 2003 fully equipped Ford Crown Victoria.

"The DOT grants are usually very easy to do. We get almost 100 percent
of the grants we ask for," Simone said. "It's allowed us to get brand
new traffic enforcement vehicles, conduct DUI holiday and spot checks.
It really gives us a lot of flexibility."

Other state grants from the Office of Policy and Management and the
Office of Emergency Medical Services have provided the department with
electronic speed enforcement signs, Automatic External Defibrillators
and completely covered the cost of the town's bike patrol program.

"That whole program exists because of donations and grants," Daly
said. "We can have this Rails to Trails program and it doesn't cost
the town anything."

Then there are the grants police get without even asking, like an
education program with local liquor stores to combat underage drinking
that was secured by the town's Youth Services department. Southington
police were also approached by the Connecticut Coalition Against
Domestic Violence to benefit from a grant that allows for a part-time
victim's advocate to work with the department.

While the majority of grants filtered down to Southington have been
from the state level, the department is also working to get the
federal government to pony up funds for uses such as a middle school
resource officer. But federal grants, and now even state grants, are
becoming elusive and many come with conditions, according to Simone.

"The federal grants are very difficult to get," Simone said. "And in
the case of the resource officer, if we get a grant to add more
people, one of the conditions is we have to keep the person on after
the grant expires. The town signed on to do that in this case, but you
have to retain these people when the money is gone. Then where do you
go for the money? You want to keep the programs but do you drop
another junior officer? "

For instance, for years the department has been utilizing grant
dollars from the state to run the Drug Abuse Resistance Education
Program (DARE) in elementary schools.

But this year, the funding for the grants was eliminated by the state,
leaving towns and cities to fend for themselves if they want to keep
the successful drug prevention program running. In order to keep the
program going in Southington, the department had to cut the program
from 17 weeks to just 10.

"They aren't giving as much as they use to," Sgt. Lowell DePalma said.
"We'll get rejected for a lot of grants and it's not because we don't
need the money, it's just that there are other departments that need
more. Because of the economic times, there are more and more people
competing for the same dollars and less of the dollars being handed
out."

Still, when it comes to securing grants it never hurts to ask, as far
as the department is concerned.

"In these economic times, how you spend dollars is very important.
There is no way we can conduct all these programs without grant
money," Simone said. "We've come a long way in reaching out to the
public as a resource. We can do a lot more, but you have to retain the
funding."