COPS Hiring Program (CHP)
CHP pays up to 75% of entry-level salary and fringe for new or rehired sworn officers for three years, capped at $125,000 per position, in exchange for a community policing plan and a 12-month retention commitment. Scoring is data-driven: fiscal need, crime and community policing each carry about one-third of the initial score, then a qualitative narrative review and additional-consideration factors adjust the rank. Half of hiring funds go to jurisdictions over 150,000 population and half to those at or below it.
Program facts
- Agency
- Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office), U.S. Department of Justice
- Assistance Listing
- 16.068
- Statutory authority
- Title I, Part Q of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 (34 U.S.C. 10381 et seq.), funded through the annual Department of Justice appropriations act
- Award ceiling
- Up to $125,000 federal share per officer position over 3 years; requests capped at 20% of actual sworn force and 50 positions per agency
- Awards
- The FY2026 NOFO made up to $157.5 million available for roughly 250 awards
- Period of performance
- Three years of salary funding per position inside a five-year period of performance, plus 12 months of locally funded retention
- Cost share
- Minimum 25% local cash match per position (higher when 3-year entry-level salary and fringe exceed $167,000); waivers possible for documented fiscal distress
- Cycle
- In recent cycles the NOFO posts in late spring or early summer with a two-step deadline: the FY2026 NOFO posted June 9, 2026, with the SF-424 due in Grants.gov July 23 and the full application due in JustGrants July 29, 2026
Program goals
- Increase agency capacity to engage in community policing and crime prevention
- Fund planned community partnerships and problem-solving projects tied to a named problem/focus area
- Support organizational changes in personnel and management that sustain community policing
- Help understaffed agencies operating below budgeted strength restore sworn positions
Scoring rubric
Fiscal need33
Current and prior-year operating budgets, budget cuts, layoffs or furloughs, unemployment and poverty data, and how far the agency sits below budgeted sworn strength. These are computed from survey answers, so internal consistency with your budget documents matters.
Crime33
Reported crime data for the jurisdiction, especially violent crime trends, entered exactly as published in UCR/NIBRS. The COPS Office checks whether your crime data is published, so mismatches cost points.
Community policing plan34
A specific problem/focus area, named partners, a problem-solving strategy and measurable outcomes. A minimum community policing score is required to advance, and the narrative then gets a qualitative read for alignment with the selected focus area.
The FY2026 CHP application review slides weight fiscal need, crime and community policing at 33% each; points here are rounded to sum to 100. Additional consideration (rural designation, veteran hiring, critically understaffed agencies, the six common sense policing focus areas and others) adjusts scores after initial ranking. Confirm against the current NOFO and application survey questions.
Eligibility
- Local, state, territorial and federally recognized Tribal law enforcement agencies with primary law enforcement authority
- Agencies must be established and operational; campus or special-jurisdiction forces qualify only if they meet the primary-authority test
- Agencies with fewer than 10 sworn officers may request one position
- Positions must be new hires, rehires of laid-off officers, or rehires of officers scheduled for layoff, hired on or after the project start date
Required attachments
- SF-424 submitted in Grants.gov (Step 1)
- Full JustGrants application with the CHP application survey: sworn force, budgeted strength, population, operating budgets, entry-level salary and fringe, unemployment, poverty and crime data
- Community policing narrative responses
- Budget Detail Worksheet with entry-level salary and fringe per position; up to 2% direct administrative costs itemized under Other
- Local match waiver request with fiscal distress documentation, if requested
- School Resource Officer MOU, if positions are deployed as SROs
- Financial Management and System of Internal Controls Questionnaire
Formatting rules
- Most content is entered in fixed online survey fields in JustGrants rather than a free-form narrative
- Community policing responses are answered question by question in the application survey; keep each answer tied to the selected problem/focus area
- Budget must use current entry-level salary and fringe, not the salary of the specific officer you intend to hire
Why applications lose points
- Missing the Grants.gov SF-424 step, which blocks the JustGrants submission entirely
- Crime figures that do not match the agency's published UCR/NIBRS numbers
- A generic community policing narrative that does not match the selected problem/focus area and fails the minimum score
- Budgeting above entry-level salary or including unallowable items such as overtime, equipment or uniform allowances
- Planning to absorb positions through attrition, which does not satisfy the retention requirement
- Budget cuts timed with the award that look like supplanting
How ELIXIR CONSUMERS helps with COPS CHP
- 1.Pulls sworn force, budgeted strength and operating budget figures from the adopted budget documents in your vault so survey answers match source records
- 2.Drafts community policing responses against the selected focus area and cites your own crime analysis and partner MOUs
- 3.Builds the per-position cost table with the $125,000 cap and shows the resulting local share before you commit to a match or waiver
- 4.Tracks the 12-month retention obligation per position and flags it in the budget forecast for the years after federal funding ends
More public safety breakdowns
- BJA JAG Local Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) Program, Local Formula SolicitationALN 16.738
- BJA SCA Reentry BJA Second Chance Act Community-based Reentry ProgramALN 16.812
- FEMA AFG Assistance to Firefighters Grant (AFG) ProgramALN 97.044
- OJJDP Mentoring OJJDP Mentoring Programs (FY2026 Mentoring for Youth Impacted by Opioids and Other Substance Use)ALN 16.726
Questions, answered
Is the $125,000 cap per year?
No. It is the maximum federal share per position over the full three-year funding period, absent an approved match waiver. Costs above that are the agency's responsibility.
Can we use CHP to backfill officers we already budgeted?
No. CHP is subject to a non-supplanting requirement, and positions must be added above the locally funded positions that would have existed without the award.
Does picking a focus area help?
Choosing one of the listed common sense policing problem/focus areas earns additional consideration, but recipients must then devote all funded positions to that focus area for the life of the award.
Does ELIXIR CONSUMERS submit to JustGrants for us?
No. ELIXIR CONSUMERS prepares the survey answers, narrative and budget as an export package; your authorized official enters and certifies them in Grants.gov and JustGrants.
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