Cincinnati City Council is set to vote Wednesday on an emergency ordinance that would secure more than $6 million in federal money to hire up to 50 entry-level police officers. The meeting is scheduled for 2 p.m., and City Manager Sheryl Long is asking council members to accept a grant offered by the Department of Justice.
According to WLWT, the grant would cover salary and benefit expenses of up to $125,000 per position over three years, a structure designed to help the city absorb the cost of onboarding dozens of new recruits at once. The report does not specify which year's Department of Justice award this proposal draws from, or how quickly the city would be able to bring new officers on board if council signs off.
A Familiar Ask for Cincinnati Police
This isn't the first time Cincinnati has gone after federal dollars to fill out its police ranks. Back in November 2021, the department was set to receive more than $6 million in grants from the Department of Justice to hire 50 new officers, according to Local 12. That earlier funding was part of the DOJ's community-oriented policing services program, as reported by Patch, and was intended to let the department run back-to-back recruit classes and climb back toward full staffing strength, per the same Local 12 report.
Fox19 reported at the time that the COPS Hiring Program exists to reduce crime and advance public safety through community policing, according to the Department of Justice. Cincinnati was one of 183 departments nationwide awarded funding in that 2021 round, the station noted, and one of just two agencies in the Southern District of Ohio to receive DOJ grant money that year — the other being the Whitehall Police Department, which was slated to get $750,000 for six additional officers, according to Fox19.
Another Round Followed in 2022
The pattern repeated less than a year later. In October 2022, the city said a DOJ grant of more than $6 million would add 50 more officers to the department, Local 12 reported at the time. That same month, council approved a separate ordinance raising a police recruit's starting salary to $25 an hour and adding a $2,000 bonus for graduating the academy, according to the outlet's coverage.
Federal award-list documents published by the Department of Justice's COPS office show Cincinnati receiving 50 positions and $6.25 million in both the 2024 and 2025 award cycles, though the dossier reviewed for this story could not confirm whether either of those listings corresponds to the grant now in front of council, or whether it matches the funding described in the 2021 or 2022 reporting. The relationship between this week's ordinance and those prior awards remains unclear.
Staffing Context Remains Uncertain
The Cincinnati Police Department's own website lists 1,053 sworn law enforcement officers and 119 non-sworn employees on its current roster, though that figure's currency was not independently verified for this story. What is clear is that the city has repeatedly turned to the same federal hiring program over the past several years as it works to grow its ranks, and Wednesday's council vote marks the latest attempt to lock in that support.
