The Jackson [Mississippi] Police Department apparently will miss out on about $12.5 million in federal grant money meant to pay the salaries of new police officers.

Valerie Nevels, assistant chief administrative officer for the city, said Monday that the city has spent about $1.5 million of a $14.8 million COPS Universal Hire grant awarded in 1995. Last year, the city rushed to hire enough recruits to meet a 450-officer threshold to keep the grant.

The city met that goal - hiring enough to bring the force to about 465 officers - but Nevels said the grant will only pay the salaries of the approximately 15 officers above the grant cutoff for the next three years. Nevels estimates that's about $750,000 total between now and the end of the grant, leaving the bulk of the grant unspent.

Assistant Police Chief Lee Vance, who has been asked to bring order to the department's $21 million in grants, said that is not the way he understood the COPS grant to work.

"It's not my understanding that we are leaving anything on the table," he said. "To my understanding, nothing is definite."

Regardless, Vance said the department's grants are a mess.

"Deadlines were being missed. There was the threat of having to pay money back. There were poor management practices in place," he said. "That's what I'm determined to improve.

"Until we can get where it is functional we shouldn't apply for another penny," he said.

Ward 7 Councilwoman Margaret Barrett-Simon said the missed grant opportunity is an embarrassment.

"It's more than a tragedy," she said.

Police Chief Malcolm McMillin did not disagree, but he noted the city's problems with grants were well established before he took over JPD in October. Only 10 percent of the COPS grant has been spent, although the city has had the grant since 1995, according to figures supplied by Nevels.

McMillin said the monitoring of departmental grants has been consolidated into one unit so the lines of communication - an accountability - are clear.

"This problem didn't happen overnight," he said. "We beg the (council's) indulgence. We are moving in the right direction."

Nevels has made several suggestions for reforming the grant programs, including centralized tracking of the grants across all city departments and uniform standards for spending money once it is awarded.

Nevels said Monday she does not know how much of the city's $44 million in grants has been spent - no one does.

"That's our next job," she said.

Nevels spent the past year collecting information on 35 city grants. She presented the findings to the City Council earlier this month. The report appears to show only about one-fifth of the money has been spent, but Nevels on Monday said the figures only refer to spending in the current fiscal year, which began Oct.1.

For instance, the report shows $2,105 spent of a $2 million Department of Justice grant for police equipment awarded to the city in 2005. Nevels said that figure only refers to this year's spending. While the managers of individual grants may know how much they have left in such grants, Nevels said there is no central mechanism for tracking all of the city's grants.

The city's chaotic history with grants has resulted in federal audits and demands of repayment of some grant money. But Nevels said the city actually has repaid less to the federal government than previously reported.

Earlier this year, the Police Department was ordered to pay the federal government $279,000 in misspent grant money.

To comment on this story, call Chris Joyner at (601) 360-4619.