YOUNGSTOWN — City Council’s safety committee members again questioned a $1.61 million federal grant to pay 75% of the salaries of up to 15 new police officers and the purchase of 11 new police vehicles but agreed to move the proposals to the full legislative body for a vote.

That, however, doesn’t mean the members don’t remain skeptical and at least one still opposes the purchase of that many vehicles.

Council-woman Anita Davis, D-6th Ward and a former Youngstown police detective sergeant who serves as the committee’s vice chairwoman, said after Thursday’s meeting about the vehicle legislation: “I’m just moving it to the body. I don’t like that number. It was just a motion. It’s not my vote.”

Council next meets June 4.

At the safety committee’s last meeting on April 25, members met for 80 minutes and held the items in committee for further discussion, which occurred Thursday.

The city learned in March that it received a $1,612,179 grant from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) for the period between Oct. 1, 2024, and Sept. 30, 2029. The grant pays 75% of the salaries for up to 15 new police officers with the city paying $537,390, the remaining 25%.

With a Youngstown police officer’s starting pay at $43,680 and a cadet making less, the overall $2,149,560 in federal and local funding wouldn’t cover 15 officers for all five years. Also, payment is permitted for a specific individual for three years under the program, but can pay for a total of up to 15 each quarter of the five years.

There was only one officer eligible for less than two weeks to get reimbursed through the grant during the final quarter of 2024. In the first quarter of this year, the department would have been eligible to get reimbursed for one officer and three cadets.

Council at its April 2 meeting moved the acceptance and appropriation of the grant to the safety committee.

Detective Sgt. Seanne Carfolo, the police department’s fiscal officer, said the grant allows reimbursement up to 30 days after a three-month quarter.

Under questioning from Councilman Jimmy Hughes, D-2nd Ward and a former Youngstown police chief who chairs the safety committee about who is eligible, Carfolo repeated that the grant would not pay for veteran officers and only for those hired on or after Oct. 1, 2024.

The police department plans to hire 10 officers this year.

But police Chief Carl Davis said that there are 24 officers who are enrolled in a state Deferred Retirement Option Plan, and they would leave the department in the next few years. He called it “alarming news.” A total of 125 officers and three cadets work under Davis at the department.

The committee again discussed a request to spend $695,400 for the purchase of 11 police vehicles — five patrol officer cruisers, three K-9 vehicles and three for the crime lab — as well as $41,600 for mobile data terminals for the new cruisers and K-9 vehicles.

Anita Davis said she wants GPS in all police cars so the chief and his top staff can monitor where officers are located, including those with take-home vehicles. The chief said the only issue he had was putting the systems into cars driven by undercover officers.

At council’s April 16 meeting, the body referred the two items to the safety committee.

Carfolo said the department wouldn’t normally ask for 11 police vehicles in one year, but the crime lab cars are at least 10 years old with more than 200,000 miles on each of them, and the K-9 vehicles need to be replaced.

Going forward, the department would request five or six police cruisers be replaced each year, Carfolo said.

That is too many, Anita Davis said.

Thursday’s meeting was more cordial than the one on April 25 at which Hughes wouldn’t permit Carfolo to speak or cut him off a number of times.

Before the meeting started, Hughes apologized to Carfolo, saying he read about his behavior in an article in The Vindicator.

Carfolo said he, too, read the article and “it depicted the meeting,” which drew some laughs.