The Department of Justice is handing out $1 billion in stimulus dollars to cities and towns across the country to hire more police officers.  However, three Arkansas cities won't see a dime.

The city of Austin in Lonoke County only has three full time officers and eight part time officers.  The once small town is growing and police Chief John Staley says that comes with a growing need for more officers.  He applied for $100,000 worth of stimulus funds to pay for a new full-time officer for three years.  However he discovered Austin is not eligible for that money.

A grant called the Community Oriented Policing Services, or COPS is to blame.  The mayor says the grant provided money to hire two full-time officers and six part-time officers when they received the grant several years ago.  However, she says they could not afford to pay for their salaries once the grant money ran out.  The grant required the city to retain the officers for two years.  Because they were unable to meet the requirements of the COPS grant, they are now ineligible for the stimulus funds.

The Arkansas City mayor, Carolyne Blissett, says they also are ineligible because they did not meet the COPS grant requirements.  Instead of hiring two officers for two years, she says they hired one officer for four years.  She said it's not accurate to say they misused the funds.  She says it was a "misunderstanding," because Blissett said the DOJ initially approved their modification and then said they were not using the grant correctly.  As a result, they can't apply for any more federal grants until October 2010.

Chidester Police Chief Jarrod Purifoy says they also are ineligible because they were not able to retain an officer after hiring him through the COPS grant.  He says the city was unable to afford his salary once the grant money ran out.   Purifoy said he did not know when the city got the grant and neither did the mayor, Bobby Box.