The City of Milwaukee Finance and Personnel Committee accepted a grant from the U.S. Department of Justice 2025 COPS Hiring Program that would add 50 new officers to the Milwaukee Police Department (MPD) during its Jan. 14 meeting.
The three-year federal grant, which adds 50 new police officers to MPD, is worth more than $15 million; however, it is a shared agreement between the program and the city of Milwaukee. The grant covers 41% of the total cost, amounting to $6.25 million. The city is responsible for the remaining 59%, totaling about $8.91 million.
Funding for the program spans from Oct. 1, 2025, to Sept. 9, 2030, followed by a 12-month retention period for the 50 officers after the conclusion of the grant. The grant would need to be extended or receive additional funding to push the grant beyond the expiration date in 2030, according to a city document on the grant.
“The receipt of this grant provides us [MPD] the flexibility to use federal resources to assist in supporting sworn staffing levels within the City of Milwaukee,” said MPD Budget and Finance Manager Laura Engan. “We will continue to evaluate whether we will be able to actually access this grant to retain our compliance with Act 12.”
Act 12, enacted in June 2023, requires Milwaukee to maintain the same number of, or more, law enforcement officers as the previous year, according to the bill. However, the legislation states that positions funded by federal or state grants do not count toward the requirement.
With the grant being a shared agreement between the grantor and the city, the percentage of funding the city matches, 59%, corresponds to the same percentage of officers hired that can be counted toward the total for compliance with Act 12’s requirement. Of the 50 new police officers, 29.5 officers will count toward the city’s total law enforcement population.
The grant will be led by the MPD’s Violent Crime Reduction Plan, completed in 2023 and updated in 2025. Much of the 2023 plan was incorporated in the 2025 update, but it includes new innovative strategies and initiatives, according to MPD Chief Jeffrey Norman.
“The plan reflected initiatives that MPD utilizes to prevent, respond to, and reduce violent crime in our community,” Norman said in a letter for the plan. “We informed the public then that the plan is continuously evolving as crime trends shift, priorities change and new initiatives and ideas are explored.”
Adoption of the grant follows an 8% increase in homicides in 2025, but overall violent crime, such as aggravated assaults, declined, according to the MPD Crime Maps & Statistics.
The five-member committee voted 4-0, accepting the grant. Committee Vice Chair Ald. Peter Burgelis and members Ald. Scott Spiker, Ald. Milele A. Coggs and Ald. Sharlen Moore voted in favor of the grant’s approval. Committee Chair Adl. Marina Dimitrijevic was excused from the vote.