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Council adds DOJ COPS hiring grant to tonight’s agenda amid deadline concerns
Summary
Spokane City Council voted to suspend rules to add a Department of Justice COPS grant for hiring community-policing officers to tonight’s agenda after staff warned the DOJ deadline is Jan. 15; councilors pressed staff on legal conditions and long-term sustainability but did not take final acceptance action in this session.
Councilors voted on Jan. 12 to suspend rules and add SBO C36A25 — a Department of Justice Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) grant to hire police officers — to the evening’s final agenda after staff said a looming DOJ acceptance deadline required urgent action.
Assistant Chief Matt Coles briefed the council on the grant’s conditions, saying the department applied “knowing our community’s expectations” and Washington state law. He told council there are “39 conditions to the grant that do require reporting to the federal government,” and that most of those conditions concern “reporting to the federal government … in regards to use of the grant funds, auditing of those grant funds,” and program eligibility. Coles said condition number 30 requires that employees hired with the grant funds be used for community-oriented policing activities.
Councilors pressed for clarity on how the grant would affect local policies, particularly immigration enforcement. One council member asked whether accepting the grant would force compliance with federal immigration requirements; Coles replied, “When we applied for this grant, we applied for this grant knowing our community's expectations of our police department, working within the frameworks of Washington state law as well.”
Finance staff member Jessica Stratton said administration and finance reviewed ongoing costs and found the positions “supportable” under current long-term assumptions, citing projected overtime reductions and natural attrition. She said the grant is designed to retain employees beyond the three-year funding window rather than hire and release them immediately after the grant ends.
City Administrator Alex Scott told the council the DOJ deadline for accepting the grant is Monday, Jan. 15, and that the deadline had already been extended once. Scott warned that if acceptance did not occur prior to Jan. 15 the city “will lose the grant dollars.” Council members requested a legal memo on the grant conditions and how they interact with state law before any final acceptance.
The council did not take final action to accept the grant in this agenda-review session; it voted only to suspend rules to add the grant for final consideration and asked staff to provide requested legal and timeline clarifications by 6 p.m. that evening or at an upcoming special meeting.
What’s next: Staff must deliver legal analysis and schedule information about the grant’s timeline and any state–federal preemption concerns; final acceptance was not recorded in this session.
