2 Cities to Ask U.S. for Police Funds : Law enforcement: If approved, grants from federal crime package would help pay for new officers in Santa Monica and Beverly Hills.

Two Westside cities have joined in the competition with hundreds of municipalities across the nation to win newly available federal funds earmarked for hiring additional police.

The Santa Monica and Beverly Hills police departments have announced that they will seek community policing grants that the federal government is making available under the crime legislation signed by President Clinton in September.

Beverly Hills police said they plan to submit an application by Dec. 31 asking for up to $300,000 to help pay for four new officers over a period of three years. The department has said it will use the officers to make its successful part-time bicycle patrol program a full-time effort.

Santa Monica decided to apply for funding for five officers after the federal government this week notified the city it was eligible to seek the grant money. The 196-officer department has not determined where it would deploy new officers, a spokesman said.

In all, the federal crime legislation will grant $8.8 billion for law enforcement agencies to hire 100,000 police officers and implement community policing programs.

One Westside city and the County Sheriff’s Department have already secured grants under the program. In October, West Hollywood won approval for $635,828, which will be used to add seven sheriff’s deputies to the local substation. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, meanwhile, won approval for $3 million to pay for 33 deputy sheriffs countywide, some of whom may be deployed in unincorporated Westside areas such as Marina del Rey and Baldwin Hills.

Despite the offer of federal monies, the decision to apply for the grants was not an easy one for Beverly Hills or Santa Monica, officials in the two cities said. The reason is that the new hires will eventually require city funding.

For cities that receive the grants, the federal government will provide up to $75,000 for each new officer in the first year. Starting in the second year, however, local law enforcement agencies are required to bear an increasing share of the cost of the new positions. At the conclusion of the three-year grant period, the individual departments are responsible for the officers’ full salaries.

Culver City has decided not to apply for the federal monies, in part because of the financial obligations the city would incur, said a police spokesman.

Beverly Hills estimates that it will have to pay more than $500,000 over the three-year grant period, even if the department receives the maximum federal funding of $300,000. Currently, annual salary and benefits for one entry-level police officer total $68,611.36, according to the department.

With 129 officers serving 31,971 residents, Beverly Hills already has one of the highest police-to-resident ratios in the country.

The local cost of hiring five new Santa Monica officers had not yet been computed, a police spokesman said.

Both cities will plan to apply for funding under the “Cops on the Beat” program. Santa Monica’s monies would come from the program’s Cops Ahead grants, which are earmarked for cities with a population of more than 50,000.

Beverly Hills will request a similar grant from Cops Fast, for communities with less than 50,000 residents. California is expected to receive about $900 million over the next six years under the crime bill, about 85% of which could be used to hire about 10,200 police officers, according to estimates by the U.S. Justice Department.