State grants to have IMPACT on crime-fighting in Schenectady, Albany counties

PHOTOGRAPHER: Steven Cook

Schenectady County law enforcement agencies will get a total of $721,900 in 2013-14 under Operation IMPACT, Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s office announced Wednesday.

The grant amount is the same awarded for 2012-13 and is be used to continue to fund crime-fighting and crime-prevention initiatives already in place.

“It’s vitally important,” Schenectady County District Attorney Robert Carney said, noting county budget pressure that has left him down a lawyer. “It’s the largest grant that we have to support our central operation.”

The District Attorney’s Office is to receive $258,400 of the grant, funding the salaries of the grand jury bureau chief and the bureau chief for intelligence and investigations.

It also helps fund an investigator and a grant to the Boys and Girls Club for gang intervention.

The Schenectady Police Department is to get $347,300, the county Sheriff’s Department $34,800 and the county Probation Department $81,400.

Schenectady Police Chief Brian Kilcullen could not be reached Wednesday, but previous awards to the department have gone in part to fund two detectives and a crime analyst supervisor.

In all, the state announced nearly $13 million in Operation IMPACT grants statewide.

Operation IMPACT grants target violent crime and domestic violence. The 17 counties receiving funding account for about 80 percent of the crime in the state outside of New York City.

The aim is to reduce and prevent crime through analysis of data and trends, developing and sharing intelligence and targeted enforcement, officials said.

State officials reported crime in the targeted areas was down 9 percent in seven categories for the first four months of 2013, as compared with the first four months of 2012. Those categories are murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny and motor vehicle theft, and are used by the state and FBI to track crime trends.

Albany County, the only other IMPACT county in the Capital Region, received $863,200.