ST. CLAIR COUNTY, IL (KTVI-FOX2now.com) - One billion dollars in federal stimulus money is supposed to save or create 5,000 police jobs in this country. But a local sheriff says that when the money was handed out, it wasn't being divvied up fairly. St. Clair County's Sheriff says it is fantastic that a thousand departments nationwide will be able to save jobs or even hire new police officers. He just can't understand why, with $25 million coming to Illinois and $19 million to Missouri, not a single cent is going to a sheriff's department. "To get nothing?" asks Sheriff Mearl Justus, with a roll of his eyes. He was one of 50 sheriffs in Illinois who applied for stimulus funding through the "Cops Hiring Recover Program", part of the 2009 economic recovery plan. None of the sheriff's departments in Illinois were awarded grants. 45 county sheriff's departments in Missouri applied. None of them got money either. $25 million is coming to Illinois, and more than $19 million to Missouri. Nationwide $1 billion is going to 1,046 agencies across the country, to save or fund five thousand jobs. Click here to see specific departments receiving funding. "That was given to some needy police departments I'm sure, but it just seems to me it could've been spread out a little better," says Justus. Less than six percent of the agencies getting funding are sheriff's departments. The US Department of Justice says it allocated the funds based on a percentage index that placed equal weight on a department's fiscal need and its amount of index crimes. Justus says, to him, that means, "The more crime you have, the more people you asked for I think you had a better chance of getting it." "We just asked for two people," he says. Justus wanted to use the money to hire two deputies to work Metrolink security, positions cut out a couple months ago due to budget cuts He says he does not understand why vitally important agencies like sheriff's departments, which back up so many local departments and house their prisoners in consistently overcrowded jails, can be overlooked. "I don't think it's working very well for law enforcement because we haven't gotten anything," he says. Justus says he is continuing to ask questions of the state and national branches of the sheriff's associations.
By Teresa Woodard
KTVI Fox 2, St. Louis
