Exemptions exist for rehiring cops with federal funds

And most communities should have known about grant conditions when officials applied, intending to receive the money, according to Gilbert Moore, spokesman for the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Community Oriented Policing Services.

Those guidelines, found the on the DOJ's Web site, www.cops.usdoj.gov,, allow a community to seek an exemption for paying the fourth year of salary and benefits for officers if there us a "severe fiscal distress, natural disaster or other mitigating circumstances."