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Jackson police could get a new ballistics unit, a small SWAT vehicle and 11 guns if the department is approved for state and federal grants.
The new chief, RaShall Brackney, is undertaking a push to bring millions in outside funding to the Jackson Police Department amid citywide budget constraints. Brackney took over the department April 1.
Jackson is navigating a sizable budget shortfall between revenue collected and the amount it planned to spend during the fiscal year that began Oct. 1. This has created the need to cut spending and freeze hiring for most positions. The deficit has also spurred the city council to hold ongoing discussions about how to avoid passing an unrealistic budget next year.
Knowing she’d have a limited budget this year, Brackney told Mississippi Today that one of her first acts as chief was to hire a local grant writer whose sole job is to find and apply for money.
“Across the nation, a lot of police departments are woefully underfunded,” Brackney said. “Not as a result of malfeasance, but a lack of resources.”
The city’s budget crunch means Jackson Police Department, which last year was budgeted for $38 million, will return to its funding levels for fiscal year 2025, about a $500,000 drop, according to city budget documents.
Police budget dominated by cost of employees
Brackney said this shortfall will prevent the department from upgrading certain equipment, such as 16-year-old patrol cars. Most of JPD’s budget goes to salaries, benefits and overtime, according to the department’s presentation to the city council during last year’s budget talks.
Jackson Police Department headquarters, located at 327 East Pascagoula Street in downtown Jackson, Wednesday, March 18, 2026. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
Even as the department spends most of its money on personnel, JPD’s command staff has long complained of understaffing due in part to unattractive salaries.
In an effort to grow the ranks, the city council in recent years has approved raises for the police. But this is one of the reasons for Jackson’s current financial position, said Pieter Teeuwissen, the city’s chief administrative officer, because the city was paying for those raises out of its savings account.
JPD is no stranger to the grants process, and currently has in hand five state and federal grants totaling more than $2 million, according to information obtained through a public records request. These include support for the bomb team and a grant to ensure sexual assault kits are tested.
At Tuesday’s city council meeting, Brackney requested the council allow the department to apply to five more federal grants and another state grant. The department has yet to receive this money, which would total more than $2 million.
State and federal grant possibilities
The sole state-funded grant that JPD is seeking would come from the Mississippi Office of Homeland Security. The department is requesting more than $125,000 to help it respond to “acts of terrorism,” primarily by equipping the SWAT team with new vests, armor, shields, helmets, guns and a small tactical vehicle.
“The City of Jackson faces an increased threat of terrorism as weapons of mass destruction are increasing (sic) being illegally possessed and used for a number of violent crimes,” the department’s grant writer, Mary Manogin, wrote in documents included in a packet submitted to the city council.
Manogin added that JPD’s current ballistic vests are “limited in quantity” and potentially fall short of “modern standards for adequate protection.” The application also states the department’s other SWAT vehicles are “large and highly visible,” which is why JPD is seeking a smaller SUV.
A federal grant worth more than $220,000 would help the department obtain “critical equipment and patrol vehicles that cannot be purchased due to budget constraints,” according to city documents. Of that, JPD wants to allocate $208,000 to “mounting docks, dash cameras, field laptops” and drones equipped with thermal imaging.
The drones, Brackney said, would allow JPD “to start overlaying blight with crime, which often (are) very connected.”
Another $700,000 federal grant would include de-escalation training and the potential adoption of virtual reality technology. A $500,000 grant from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention related to youth gangs would also support targeted enforcement efforts in areas experiencing gang-related crimes.
JPD is also seeking a $300,000 federal grant to “identify, investigate and prevent crimes” involving bias, prejudice or violent extremism. The department wrote in a document submitted to the council that it planned to allocate about $207,000 of that to purchase 10 computers and a 12-month subscription to a “threat intelligence software” platform.
And, $20,000 would go to a hate crime analyst to assist the department’s Real Time Command Center, with the remainder providing 800 brochures, resources guides and information sheets “outlining how to identify and report hate crimes” that would be distributed by a local nonprofit organization.
JPD is seeking another $300,000 in federal grants to help Brackney build a ballistics team. The Bureau of Justice Assistance’s Local Law Enforcement Crime Gun Intelligence Center grant would pay for officer overtime and help JPD hire two staff members to do data entry.
“That allows us to connect guns to crimes to incidents to persons,” Brackney said.
