The Concord Police Department starts 2025 with several positions still vacant.

Deputy Chief Steve Smagula hopes funding from Congress – $73,000 that’ll be used for evidence recovery technology and training – will help attract more candidates to work for the department.

“People want to work for agencies that have great equipment and great training opportunities,” Smagula said. “If you’re out there doing good things and you’re investing in your staff, then you would hope that you would get the retention and the recruitment to follow.”

Concord police received just a sliver of the law enforcement funding headed to New Hampshire, secured through U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen. About two dozen law enforcement agencies and the state’s Department of Safety were awarded more than $11 million in grants targeted at updating equipment and technology.

Smagula said Concord’s $73,000 will be used to purchase two new metal detectors that can search in wooded areas, underwater and in the snow. The department is also replacing two of its forensic cameras and buying a handheld laser scanner that Smagula said works better to search tight or hard-to-reach areas.

On the training side, Concord police plan to use some of the money to send investigators to learn about bloodstain pattern analysis and crime scene processing with photography, as well as a 10-week stint at the National Forensic Academy in Tennessee.

Concord is far from the only locality struggling to hire and retain officers. Law enforcement agencies statewide and nationally are hurting for staff, something New Hampshire’s political leaders say they’ll prioritize in the next state budget. Incoming Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte has repeatedly backed law enforcement and created a task force to explore, in part, ways to get more police and corrections officers in New Hampshire.

Smagula said he’s applied for other congressional grants and is still waiting to hear whether Concord Police Department will win one for $100,000, which would upgrade the department’s active shooter response. He applied for it shortly after the mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine.

“When you look at what happened in Maine, you know, and you think about public safety in your own community, you just want … the police officers to have the tools to do the job if they ever have to,” Smagula said.

That grant would upgrade shields in the back of police cars and supply more training for active shooter situations.

Concord also isn’t the only local police force to see federal investments.

In Franklin, police officers will for the first time get body-worn cameras, thanks to $208,000 in federal dollars that will also supply six camera systems for cruisers. This will “improve transparency and accountability in interactions between officers and members of the public,” according to Shaheen’s announcement.

Ralph Hale, a lieutenant at Franklin Police Department, said he wanted to get ahead of the curve. Surrounding towns like Andover and Tilton already have them. Within a few years, he said, he expects body-worn cameras could be mandatory for police officers.

“We could see down the road that this will probably be tied to other grants, that if we don’t have these working and implemented, that we may not qualify for other grants,” Hale said.

Franklin will get 24 body-worn cameras, one for each officer position, although some are currently vacant.

The Merrimack County Sheriff’s Department, too, will get new technology for the new year. Sgt. Matthew Wilson said with $261,000 in federal funding, the department plans to equip all 30 of its vehicles with mobile data terminals.

By enabling officers to file citations, accident reports and do other work from their cars, Wilson said, this technology helps them spend more time out on patrol. He estimates officers could spend as much as two to three more hours per day out in the community instead of returning to their desks for some administrative work.

“The ability to be electronically tethered now like that, as opposed to having to come in and sit down, talk to somebody and get paperwork, really boosts our ability to do the job tenfold,” Wilson said.

Besides equipment, some New Hampshire law enforcement agencies will use their piece of the pie to train for active threats, employ new de-escalation programs and use virtual reality simulators that teach officers about community-oriented policing, mental health awareness and bias.

Shaheen’s funding spans far beyond law enforcement, with about $90 million statewide heading toward about dozens of other housing, infrastructure and healthcare projects. Locally, the Concord Coalition to End Homelessness won a grant for $2 million that’ll be put toward building a new resource center.