WASHINGTON   –  U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson (MO-08) today cited serious concerns that law enforcement grants provided from the stimulus bill to the federal Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) grant program are not being distributed evenly in Missouri.  The grants from the $1 billion stimulus program will provide 115 new officers for the St. Louis and Kansas City metro areas and only three new officers for the rest of the state.

“This is our tax money in rural America, too, and we are being shorted on COPS law enforcement big time,” Emerson said.  “Our congressional districts all serve roughly the same number of constituents, and we all have acute needs for more officers and funding.  For the rural part of our state to get three new officers out of 118 in Missouri is so egregious, I can’t even believe someone would do this on purpose.”

Missouri’s share of federal COPS grants from the billion-dollar stimulus disbursement is $19,697,636, but only $282,350 will be spent on the three positions in Hollister, Parma and Kennett.

“Rural Missouri – not just the Eighth Congressional District, but all of rural Missouri – is getting 2.5 percent of the officers for our state and 1.4 percent of the funding.  We’re talking about three new officers for a couple million Missouri citizens.

“Frankly, this is a great example of why I voted against the stimulus in the first place.  You vest all of this spending authority with bureaucrats, you rush the bill through Congress, and you end up with extreme imbalances between urban and rural parts of our country.  The bill was reckless and hasty, and the implementation of the stimulus COPS grants shows the same shortcomings.  This latest failing is a great argument for something our Founders strongly believed in – reserving the power of the purse to Congress,” Emerson said.

The federal government pays three years of salary and benefits for officers hired under the COPS program.  According to the U.S. Department of Justice, which administered the stimulus grants, a formulaic combination of budgetary problems and high crime rates was used to determine which communities would get the money.

Emerson, who represents 28 counties in Southern Missouri, is a vocal advocate in Congress for rural law enforcement and drug task forces.  “Obviously, rural communities were overlooked in this analysis.  There was no attempt to evenly distribute the COPS grants across the state of Missouri.  It’s a huge affront to law enforcement in rural Missouri and to the people who work so hard to keep our communities safe.”