$18 million from feds to help hire police in state

When the White House on Tuesday announced the 30 police departments in Washington that will share in $1 billion in federal grants to keep officers on the street, two agencies were noticeably absent: the state's largest local forces.

The Seattle Police Department and the King County Sheriff's Office were left out of the huge cash infusion that sent $18 million to other Washington departments.

Federal officials were quick to say that empty-handed agencies should look on the bright side: The money was meant for the most economically distressed communities with the worst relative crime rates.

Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels took that to heart, saying a low crime rate and the hiring of 90 new cops in the past five years clearly worked against the city's chances.

But the Sheriff's Office, which has recently cut dozens of deputies, didn't hide its disappointment.

"The King County Sheriff's Office should be a poster child for these grants," said spokesman Sgt. John Urquhart. "It's unbelievable."

Vice President Joseph Biden and Attorney General Eric Holder held a ceremony Tuesday in Philadelphia to announce the grants, allotted in the $787 billion stimulus package passed earlier this year.

"These officers will go to where they are needed most," Holder said.

In Washington, the big winners are Vancouver, which gets $2.6 million to pay for 10 officers, and Tacoma, which gets $1.6 million for five officers.

"We got a nice surprise today," said Kim Kapp, a Vancouver Police Department spokeswoman. She said the department has huge staffing gaps that have allowed violent gang crime to spread from neighboring Portland.

In King County, Renton will get six officers; Auburn, five; Tukwila, three; and Des Moines and Kent will each get two. In Snohomish County, Everett gets two officers and the city of Snohomish gets enough for one officer.

The grants pay for three years of salaries and benefits. After that, the communities have to come up with the cash to keep the officers.

Seattle had submitted an application for $7.8 million to hire 26 cops. Five would have been devoted to school-resource duty and the rest dedicated to community-policing work, according to the city's application.

The Sheriff's Office had requested a whopping $35.5 million to hire 128 deputies, including 28 for its various contract cities.

Bellevue police didn't apply because its force is fully staffed, said spokeswoman Carla Iafrate.

The Justice Department, which handles the grants through a Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) office, wouldn't say specifically why Seattle and King County were left out.

But officials said competition was fierce.

Nationally, about 7,000 state and local agencies applied for a piece of the $1 billion. Of those, only about 1,000 were approved, for a total 3,818 new officers and 881 retained positions that would otherwise have been lost to budget cuts.

In Washington, 156 agencies applied for the grants, totaling $151 million in requests for 598 officers, a Justice Department official familiar with the program said Tuesday. Of that, 30 agencies got money for 71 officers.

"Demand clearly outpaced the available funding," said the official, who was not authorized by the White House to speak for attribution.

Selection was based on measures of "economic distress," such as joblessness and home foreclosures as well as crime rates, the official said.

"Those that had the greatest need received the greatest funding," he said. "Unfortunately, there were some hard choices that needed to be made."

Additionally, half of the money was specified for communities with fewer than 150,000 people, which leaves out Seattle and King County.

Other major U.S. cities, notably New York, Houston and Pittsburgh, were left out.

While those factors are understandable, they don't take into account the severe budget problems the Sheriff's Office faces, Urquhart said.

The agency cut 47 deputies last year and is worried it could have to get rid of 70 more. It serves about 341,000 people in unincorporated King County, not counting the contract cities.

Seattle's Nickels, in his prepared statement, expressed disappointment, too. But he tempered it with the good news.

"We also understand that many other cities in our state and across the nation with higher crime rates have been cutting police officers in the face of more severe budget crises," his statement said.

Ian Ith: 206-464-2109 or seattletimes.com">iith@seattletimes.com

Information from The Associated Press is included in this report.