Grant Will Pay For 32 Additional Police Officers In Louisville

The Louisville Metro Police Department will soon hire 32 new officers with help from a federal grant.The six million dollar federal grant comes from the Community Oriented Policing Services program and will fund the positions for three years. After that, it's up to the next mayor to find the money to keep the officers on board.Mayor Jerry Abramson says the city received a similar grant in the 1990s, and was able to find additional funds."We kept them on," he says. "That's the commitment and that's the commitment on this one, to be able to, over the three years, gin up sufficient revenue so that we're in a position to augment the police department by thirty two additional officers."Congressman John Yarmuth helped secure the grant. Police Chief Robert White says the new officers will be hired in the coming months."We pretty much have a pool of applicants we're looking at, that we continue to look at, year round," says White. "But I will tell you, certainly between November and June of this year, it is our hope to have a third class which will include most of the 32 positions we've been authorized to fill."Afterward, the department will have about 12 hundred fifty officers, which is more than have ever been on staff.