EAST LIVERPOOL - An East Liverpool Police Department officer will keep his job after a grant modification was approved.

Patrolman Chad Tatgenhorst was next in the seniority-based layoff line, according to Mayor Jim Swoger. However, Swoger and police Chief Mike McVay made a modification request to the COPS Hiring Recovery Program asking the grant be used to retain an officer rather than hire a new one.

Budgetary restrictions made keeping a roster of 18 law enforcement employees impossible, McVay noted.

"We had to send them a 200-page fax with the numbers and reasons for the modification," McVay said. The modification was approved Friday.

"Chad was scheduled for layoff on Nov. 30," the chief added.

"It was a godsend that we got the approval," Swoger said Friday evening. "That's the only way we could have kept Chad in the department. We had to have that approval."

The grant is good for three years and will provide close to $60,000 a year for that three-year period, McVay said. The grant stipulates that the city must keep the officer for at least a fourth year, and the city must find that funding.

McVay said the grant money will go into the budget line item for police department wages.

The grant starts Jan. 1, and McVay said he hopes to have enough money in this year's budget to pay Tatgenhorst's December salary.

"We've been after this grant and the change in its purpose for a long time now," Swoger said. "I'm glad we could get it done and keep a good officer on the streets."

mmcelwain@reviewonline.com