This is funding for municipal departments, not a benefit residents or individual employees can apply for. OGR names Lowell, Newton, Lawrence, Brockton, Lynn, Fall River, Somerville, Malden, Haverhill and Framingham as the eligible cities. The current grant notice also requires a qualifying application approved by the executive office in fiscal 2026; being on the city list alone does not remove that condition.
The mayor or city manager decides whether to request police funding, fire funding or both, and how to divide the request. Permitted purposes include restoring or retaining officers, firefighters and civilian department staff, addressing positions lost through attrition, and paying eligible shift-coverage overtime. The stated program total is approximately $6.72 million, not a guaranteed allocation for each city.
Applicants must submit the digitally signed online form and its attachments by 4 p.m. on October 23. Email is not an accepted submission route. Prepare the requested staffing, service and budget data, explain the operational need, and complete both the Summary and Detail sheets of the supplied Excel budget workbook. Upload the workbook as Excel, not as a PDF. The program page links the application, workbook and full funding notice.
Awards are expected in November or December. The proposed grant year runs from January 1 through December 31, 2027, with the start described as tentative; expenses cannot begin before the contract is fully signed. Awards must add to, rather than replace, other funding. Recipients must meet reporting and grant conditions, including the notice’s MBTA Communities Act compliance certification where applicable.
The detailed fiscal 2027 notice cites Chapter 137 of the Acts of 2026, while the program page’s overview still refers to an earlier appropriation. Use the linked fiscal 2027 notice for this round and ask program coordinator Allison C. Garvey at Allison.C.Garvey@mass.gov about discrepancies or application problems. The sources state a 4 p.m. cutoff but do not expressly identify a time zone; confirm that detail with OGR before relying on an automated reminder.