Federal grant to pay for 8 deputies in Placer County

The Placer County Sheriff’s Office will be able to hire eight deputies to help combat the cultivation and use of illegal drugs throughout the county with a $2.6 million federal grant.

“This is great news for our county and its residents,” county Supervisor Jennifer Montgomery said in a press release. “Placer County’s grant will allow the Sheriff’s Office to add eight front-line deputies and will cover 100 percent of the funding for salaries and benefits over the next three years.”

The grant funds will be used to launch a multi-agency project that will:

* Expand communications with community-resource networks and strengthen working relationships with schools, nonprofit social service agencies, and other law enforcement agencies;

* Equip deputies working in the field with a better drug-related database;

* Conduct public forums to heighten public awareness of drug issues in local communities;

* Strengthen community oriented policing by expanding the Sheriff’s Special Investigations, Special Operations and Air Operations teams;

* Develop stronger partnerships with minority communities; and

* Help prevent youth drug abuse and protect youths from drug-infested environments through a host of strategies, including an expansion of educational programs in schools.

The sheriff’s office is proposing the introduction of an anti-drug program called the Drug Store in local middle schools, which is something the South Shore does now.

Placer County’s grant is part of almost $72 million in grant funds awarded to local governments throughout California by the Office of Community Oriented Policing, a branch of the U.S. Department of Justice.