Limestone County and the City of Athens will soon be applying for some help in bringing multiple new police officers to local departments.

The City Council voted unanimously at its meeting Monday to authorize the application for an United States Department of Justice Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) grant to provide monetary assistance in hiring sevens officers for Athens Police Department.

The Limestone County Commission voted unanimously during its meeting Tuesday to apply for the same grant, seeking help in hiring three deputies for the Sheriff’s Office.

“The 2021 COPS Hiring Program is a competitive grant program that advances public safety by providing funding directly to law enforcement agencies to hire and/or rehire additional sworn career law enforcement officers in order to increase their community policing capacity and crime prevention efforts,” said COPS in a release.

According to Athens Police Chief Floyd Johnson, the grant would pay 75%, up to $125,000 per officer, for first three years of employment. He said after that period the City must maintain those officers for at least one year.

“Then it would be up to the Council for what to do after that,” Johnson said. “Hopefully we would have the funds to be able to keep them after that. It will not pay for equipping the officers, but it will pay for their benefits and salary.”

Mayor Ronnie Marks said during Monday’s meeting the City has applied for COPS grants over the last few years but have not gotten any. Johnson said the last time his department received a COPS grant was before he was chief in 2009.

“Every time it comes open, we apply,” Johnson said.

Commission Chairman Collin Daly said during Tuesday’s meeting the county had also applied for COPS grant in the past.

“There is no guarantee we will get it, but any time you can hire three deputies and get the biggest majority of it paid for, it would be worth it,” he said.

During the City Council meeting, member Harold Wales asked Johnson if his department would need these seven officers even if the justice department did not come through with funding.

“We will need officers,” Johnson said. “We got four (in the budget from the City) last year, which was a great help. We have hired the first one. We are beginning to see the applications come back in. We tested Saturday morning. We had seven applicants, but we had two people show up. We will be interviewing this week. Both of those two that showed up for the physical and written tests both passed, so that’s positive. We will see where it goes.”

Johnson said the growth Athens is seeing is the biggest problem affecting his department at this time and creating the need for more officers.

“We have a lot of territory to cover,” he said. “Soon we will have a lot more houses to cover. Growth is good, we just have a lot of things we’re going to have to do because of it.”

Council President Wayne Harper, a former Athens police chief, said the COPS grants take into account the crime statistics of the area applying, and “we have relatively good crime stats compared to other cities our size.”

Marks said hopefully the growth the city is seeing will “kick us up a notch” when the COPS office considers grant applications.

According to the COPS office, applications for the grant are due Tuesday. Johnson said he expects to know whether or not Athens is selected for any funding by this fall.