Schulenburg Awarded Justice Dept. Grant for New Officers

Schulenburg Police Department recently won a federal Justice Department grant to hire two new officers. The grant will pay 75 percent of the officers’ salaries for the next three years.

Schulenburg Police Chief Troy Brenek said he applied for the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) grant from the U.S. Justice Department months ago as a way of preparing his department for future growth in Schulenburg. He pointed to the new 36-home residential subdivision going up on the north side of town and plans for another truck stop at the intersection of US 77 and Interstate 10.

“This will allow for more police coverage,” Brenek said. “And it will give us an opportunity to become more diverse.”

The grant award comes at a time when police departments and communities around the nation are having tough conversations about race relations and police brutality. In some places, activists have called for defunding police.

“Our department needs to represent the entire citizenship,” Brenek said. By offering these two spots, it will give us an opportunity to move forward in doing that.”

The department will begin the hiring process in October. Brenek encouraged minority applicants to apply.

Brenek said the federal grant rarely gets awarded to small police departments. “A key factor in us getting the

“A key factor in us getting the grant was Interstate 10 and Highway 77, with all of the drug trafficking and human smuggling that goes on,” he said.

Brenek said a large portion of his department’s calls for service come from the area around that major intersection on the north side of town. The aforementioned new subdivision and planned truck stop are also located in that area.

A few years ago, the City Council tasked the Police Department with municipal code enforcement duties, such as writing warnings to residents with tall grass or dilapidated structures. Brenek said the new officers provide the department with more time to attend to those duties.

The initial grant award was for three new officers. Brenek said the City Council raised some concerns about funding all three positions after the grant money runs out in three years. The City was able to negotiate with the Justice Department to modify the award for two officers instead. The Justice Department will provide $250,000 over a three year period. The City will have to contribute $104,000 over the same time period. After that, the City will be responsible for the full salary costs of both officers.

If the cost of employing the officers becomes too much for the City to handle after three years, Brenek said, the department could withhold from filling empty positions as other officers retire or move to other jobs.

“If all this expansion doesn’t work out and we lose a spot, we don’t have to fill it,” he said.