ARKANSAS, Ark. — Law enforcement agencies spend thousands of dollars maintaining all their equipment, and as you can imagine that can get pretty expensive.
New state grants here in Arkansas were just awarded to more than 100 agencies to help offset some of those costs.
The Saline County Sheriff's Office was one of several agencies that received a $100,000 state grant.
The Chief Deputy said that this will be a big help to his deputies and help improve transparency.
"Our plan with the money is to offset some of the costs for us to replace and install in-car cameras and all of our patrol vehicles and some of our other enforcement vehicles, as well as supply each of our deputies with a body cam," Saline Co. Chief Deputy, Dustin Robertson said.
Chief Deputy Robertson found out on Thursday that they got the grant through the Public Safety Equipment Grant Program.
"Grants like this to kind of modernize us, keep us progressing, improving our equipment, our training, and those kinds of things," he said.
Deputy Robertson said that their equipment is outdated and some vehicles and deputies don't even have cameras, so this will be a huge help.
"It's very cost prohibitive for a lot of agents. So use, it's not cheap to do it. But it's, it's a necessary thing," he said.
For smaller agencies like the Alexander Police Department, Lieutenant Jessica Burnett said it's been a big help too. They plan to use the 100 thousand dollars to upgrade their dash and body cameras as well.
"We have a small city, but we have a large call volume for the city... it's a project that we wouldn't have been able to do in full without the grant," Lt. Burnett said.
She said their current cameras have issues and the new ones will make officers' jobs a bit easier.
"They will activate if you activate body camera, it activates your dash camera and vice versa," she said.
Both Lieutenant Burnett and Deputy Robertson agreed that the new equipment will increase transparency between them and the people they serve.
"I think it just builds trust between us in the community, that we are a professional organization and contacts with us are there going to be right there for you to see anybody to see, and how we conduct ourselves," Deputy Robertson said.