We mentioned earlier this month that the Community Capacity Development Office (CCDO) at the Office of Justice Programs was fielding applications for new Weed & Seed sites, and noted that sites could receive up to $1 million over five years.
So we were stunned to see a note posted on CCDO’s website recently that announced applicants could receive a maximum of $100,000, annually, for five years. We called to ask what happened.
Funding has been reduced every year, a CCDO employee told us. But $1 million per site, she said, “has never been the amount.”
Really? Because that makes this statement in the Weed and Seed application kit a little confusing:
CCDO may award up to $1 million in Weed and Seed funding to each community based on a bell curve design with increasing and decreasing amounts over the 5-year eligibility period.
Even at the lower amount, groups can get as much as $500,000 over five years to work on crime reduction, with pretty flexible rules on what type of work can be done. At least half of the money has to be spent on law enforcement tactics; the rest can be used for prevention, intervention, treatment and “neighborhood restoration.”
