But just 16 of those officers hit the streets, and the Sandy City Council had no intention of hiring the remaining four because it was concerned with meeting its match and retaining the grant-funded officers, according to a federal audit.

"Twenty was more than we could handle," said Sandy spokesman Ryan Mecham.

Sandy was one of four Utah police agencies audited by the Justice Department's inspector general in the 1990s and 2000s after questions were raised about how the agencies, including the Salt Lake City Police Department, were spending grants from the U.S. Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS).

Auditors alleged that three of the four Utah departments either did not hire or redeploy all the officers they were given money for or used their federal funds to cover expenses incurred before the grants began.

Altogether, auditors questioned the use of nearly $600,000 in grant money given to the three departments.

All of the issues have since been resolved, and the fiscal examinations are not emblematic of how the more than 100 Utah police agencies that receive the grants use their money, said COPS spokesman Gilbert Moore.

"I hardly think it's representative of the experience of all our grantees," he said.

But the audits illustrate a pair of potential problems with the grants: The law-enforcement agencies may not get a commitment from their city or county governments to spend local money to fulfill the grants' matching requirements. And the local governments may be tempted to use the grant money to fund existing programs rather than use it to enhance their law enforcement.

The Bush administration is eyeing the elimination of the grants altogether. The administration's proposed budget for fiscal 2006 calls for the elimination of COPS grants as well as Byrne Justice Assistance Grants, for an annual savings of $635 million.

Sandy's grants were audited in 1998, four years after COPS was created by an act of Congress. Because of some paperwork problems, Sandy had to reimburse the federal government more than $46,000. COPS also reduced a $750,000 grant to Sandy by nearly one-third because the four officers were not hired.

When Sandy received the grants in the mid-1990s, the city was expanding, bringing in new residents and an increased tax base, but the city decided that 16 officers was all it could afford, Mecham said.

"Right now we feel very comfortable where we are staffed," he said.

But the grants could pose problems, Mecham said, if local legislative bodies fail to budget long-term. Typically, the hiring grants require at least a 25 percent match by the grantee. When the federal grant ends after three years, the grantee must retain the officers, paying them from local coffers, for one full budget cycle.

So while the grants provide short-term help, municipalities and counties need to budget long-term to sustain the positions, Mecham said.

Salt Lake County Sheriff Aaron Kennard said he ran into a similar problem several years ago. The sheriff applied for a grant to put 15 deputies in schools, but the then-County Council could not guarantee the deputies would be retained when the grant ran dry.

"I basically had to turn the money back in," Kennard said.

The grants are effective only if cities and counties make a three- to five-year commitment, he said. The money gets departments through difficult times and can help jump-start a police force.

With every municipality in the nation hard-pressed for revenue, local departments are relying on federal grants to assist them, Kennard said.

According to an inspector general audit in 2000, the Salt Lake City Police Department spent money on people and equipment even before the agency received its federal grant.

Auditors found the department asked for nearly $116,000 for 10 civilian support personnel - all hired before the grant began in 1995. Nine of those positions were hired before the grant's submission date - some as many as six months before the department turned its request in, the audit alleged.

The department also received almost $104,000 for computer equipment it bought in August 1998 - a month before the grant's award start date, the audit found.

The police department told COPS it hired the personnel and bought the equipment in anticipation of receiving the grant. The department later provided documentation that made COPS comfortable it had adhered to the grants' terms, Moore said.

Budget "supplanting" is something COPS monitors carefully, Moore said. COPS tries to determine the department's intent when asking for grant money, and few attempt to defraud the government, he said.

The Salt Lake City Police Department also lost more than $27,000 for excess funds.

But despite the potential problems with the grants, they should not be eliminated, Kennard said. One could find fault with any program, he said, and a program should not be killed because some agencies made mistakes.

Kennard, who is president of the National Sheriffs' Association, is fighting to retain the grants. He has met with members of Congress to ask them to revisit the Bush administration's budget. The Senate's version of the budget would restore more than $200 million for COPS and Byrne grants. The House version would not.

"Congress has seen the wisdom of these grants," Kennard said. "I really strongly believe there will be a compromise and there will be funding."

jhill@sltrib.com