ST. CLOUD, Fla. – As St. Cloud continues to grow, the city is focusing on improving its infrastructure and public safety.
While other Central Florida communities have introduced or considered new fees to fund first responders, St. Cloud is exploring federal grants to support its efforts to hire more firefighters and police officers.
The city council on Thursday is set to move forward with applications for grants to do just that.
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The police department plans to apply for a $750,000 Community Oriented Policing Service (COPS) Agency grant to add six officers.
Police Chief Douglas Goerke tells News 6 the department was able to create a new unit with the money they received the last time they applied.
“The last COPS grant that we just had, I think it was two years ago, we have a community engagement unit that we built,” he explained.
“They do hundreds of community engagement events per year. They engage our youth; they run our citizens’ police academy. They also do our explorer program. So, with that being said, we’re applying for another one. We certainly want to get six more officers out there to kind of do the same and to help patrol the city streets....St. Cloud was ranked the safest city in 2024 based on its size. We certainly want to keep up that we’ll do our best to go after that again.”
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For the fire department, a “SAFER,” or Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response grant from FEMA, would help them in their effort to hire 48 more firefighters, which could potentially cut response times in half.
“Our response districts are getting bigger. The city’s increasing. The city’s also growing and population. So, for us, it’s very important to expand our services and lower our response times,” St. Cloud Professional Firefighters Local 4153 President John Jones said. “We don’t like to lose. So, when it takes us 12 to 14 minutes to get to a call, that can have an impact on the outcome. So, we want to put people across the city where we can have very quick response times.”
The total cost for the new hires for the fire department would be $16 million, with the city requesting nearly $10 million from FEMA to reduce its costs to about $6.2 million.
While other municipalities, such as Kissimmee, have opted for a new fire assessment fee to hire firefighters, an option that Sanford is also considering, St. Cloud has not yet taken that route. However, Fire Chief Jason Miller indicated that it remains a possibility.
“Anything’s possible at this point. You know, obviously, that’s a great retention and recruitment tool,” Miller said. “So at this point, I can’t really say a whole lot more than that, but it’s something that’s definitely on our radar.”
The city council is expected to approve both applications, along with a $10 million contract to build a new fire station.