[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 84 (Tuesday, May 22, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1113]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      COPS IMPROVEMENT ACT OF 2007

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                               speech of

                            HON. DAVE WELDON

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, May 15, 2007

  Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, recently, the House considered 
legislation to reauthorize the Community Oriented Police, COPS, 
program. Unfortunately, this bill was brought up for consideration with 
no opportunity to amend and improve the bill. Rather than allowing an 
open discussion and amendment process, it was a take it or leave it 
choice that Members were given.
  In reauthorizing this program little has been done to address the 
glaring shortcomings of the program as pointed out in audits by The 
Department of Justice Office of Inspector General, OIG, the Government 
Accountability Office, GAO, and other independent analyses--including 
one by the USA Today newspaper. Before tripling a program that the 
Office of Management and Budget has graded as ``Not Performing: Results 
Not Demonstrated,'' members should have been given an opportunity to 
consider amendments aimed at improving this bill. This is particularly 
important at a time when the size of the program is being tripled from 
an appropriation of about $540 million in 2007 to nearly $1.5 billion 
within 5 years.
  These audits point out that New York City, the largest recipient of 
COPS funding--$422 million--actually has 300 fewer officers today than 
they did before they received $422 in Federal tax dollars. In 1994, New 
York City had 36,693 officers, yet by 2004 this had dropped by 321 
officers to 36,372. The audit shows that Miami, while receiving over 
$45 million, increased their police force by only 21 officers. That 
works out to over $2 million per officer according to the audit.
  Since the creation of this program in 1994, over $13 billion has been 
spent on the COPS program. While some of that funding has been well 
spent, I am concerned that audits determined that, at a minimum, 
hundreds of millions of dollars were misspent. We have a responsibility 
to the taxpayers to make sure that the money that the Federal 
Government takes from them is not misspent.
  Analyses showed that in spite of spending $6 billion dollars in the 
first 6 years of the program, COPS fell short of placing 100,000 police 
on the streets. While the GAO found that the shortfall was about 12 
percent, when you factor in historical hiring trends, the number of new 
police on the streets is far less. In fact, the Heritage Foundation 
analysis found when these historical police hiring trends are accounted 
for, the actual number of new police on the street nationwide is 
somewhere between 7,000 and 39,000--less than half of what was 
promised.
  While the COPS grants were not supposed to supplant local funds, the 
U.S. Department of Justice OIG audit of expenditures found that grant 
recipients routinely supplanted local funding with COPS grants: simply 
allowing the Federal Government to pick up the tab for what they 
otherwise would have and should have paid for. The OIG audit of 147 
high-risk grants found that 41 percent used the COPS grant to supplant 
local funds.
  An investigative report by USA Today found in an audit of 3 percent 
of COPS grants that $277 million was misspent and ``tens of thousands 
of jobs funded by the grants were never filled, or weren't filled for 
long.'' This is particularly concerning given that my constituents, who 
happen to be net donors to this program, receive less than half of 
their equitable share of Federal COPS grants.
  Finally, the purpose of the COPS program was to reduce crime. While 
many of the grant recipients saw a reduction in crime, a USA Today 
analysis found that crime fell at the same rates in communities that 
did not get COPS grants.
  So, before we all embrace a bill that triples the size of this 
program, we should first make sure that we are being responsible with 
taxpayer dollars and getting the most out of every dollar. I am not 
sure the bill before us does that.

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