New York's $75 Million LETECH Grant: What Agencies Need Before the September 2 Deadline

New York just opened one of the largest law enforcement technology funding rounds the state has seen. The Law Enforcement Technology (LETECH) grant program has $75 million available for village, town, and city police departments, tribal police, and county sheriffs' offices outside New York City, with awards ranging from $100,000 to $6 million depending on agency size. Applications are due by noon on Wednesday, September 2, 2026, which leaves a narrow window for agencies still building their case.

SoundThinking hosted a webinar with governmental relations consultant Amanda Wood of Becker and Poliakoff, Jack Pontious from SoundThinking's East Region sales team, and Chief Patrick Garey of the Endicott Police Department to walk through the opportunity. Here's what agencies need to know, plus the strategy that helped one small New York department secure full funding on its application.

New York’s Division of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) uses a tiered system based on the number of sworn officers an agency employs. Agencies with 10 or fewer sworn officers can request around $100,000, while the largest agencies, those with more than 1,001 officers, can request up to $6 million. Roughly 500 agencies statewide are eligible, and the governor's office confirmed the deadline and award tiers when the program was announced in July.

The eligible technology list is broad. DCJS included acoustic gunshot detection, license plate readers, software applications, drones and UAVs, and cameras and storage among this year's priorities. The DCJS funding opportunities page has the full request for applications and notes that vehicles, firearms, and conducted energy devices are not eligible purchases.

Every eligible request needs to tie back to a specific outcome. DCJS is looking for projects that prevent and solve crime, improve officer safety, support data-driven and precision policing, strengthen interagency collaboration, and improve public trust. A technology wish list without a clear connection to those outcomes is a weaker application, regardless of how much an agency needs the equipment.

The most common objection SoundThinking’s Jack Pontious hears across the state is straightforward: LETECH funding might cover the first one to three years of a technology program, but what happens after that contract expires? Agencies applying for LETECH should be thinking about sustainability from day one, which means layering in federal and other funding sources rather than treating this as a one-time purchase.

Several federal pathways can extend a program well past its initial state funding:

• DOJ grants. Programs like the Community Policing Development Microgrant (for projects under $200,000), the Smart Policing Initiative, Project Safe Neighborhoods, and the Local Law Enforcement Crime Gun Intelligence Center grant all fund similar technology. SoundThinking's guide to leveraging law enforcement grant funding breaks down how these programs are administered at the state level.
• DHS preparedness grants. The State Homeland Security Grant Program and Urban Area Security Initiative funding both support local law enforcement technology and appear on FEMA's authorized equipment list.
• Congressional earmarks. These move through the Commerce, Justice, Science appropriations process and typically need to be in motion by December for the following fiscal year. It's a relatively simple one-page form and letter, but the timeline runs on Congress's calendar, not an agency timeline.
• HUD CDBG funds. Communities can use up to 15% of their annual Community Development Block Grant allocation for public safety services.
• State pass-through programs. Byrne JAG and the State Homeland Security Grant Program both flow federal dollars through state administering agencies, which then distribute to local projects.

There's also no penalty for pursuing multiple funding sources at once. An agency can apply for LETECH, a DOJ grant, and DHS preparedness funding in the same year without one application affecting another.

Governmental relations consultant Amanda Wood was direct: a winning application is not a shopping list. State and federal reviewers want to see a problem statement first, then the technology that solves it. That means articulating the specific challenge in the community, whether it's gun violence, vehicle-related crime, or investigative capacity, and showing how the requested equipment addresses it.

A few components matter most:

• Data from day one. Agencies that compile incident data before they apply can show measurable outcomes later, which strengthens both this application and every future one.
• An operational plan. Reviewers want to know who owns the project, how it will be implemented, and how success will be tracked.
• A sustainability plan. Applications should explain how the program continues after the grant period ends, whether through local budget, additional grants, or both.
• Community partnerships. Demonstrating engagement with community stakeholders strengthens an application beyond the technology itself.

Common pitfalls include missing procurement or reimbursement requirements, waiting too long to secure internal approvals, and treating the application as a formality rather than a document that needs to speak directly to what the solicitation is asking for.

Endicott is a small village in western Broome County, about three hours from New York City. Chief Patrick Garey described a two-year rise in gun-related crime that included two homicides. Rather than requesting a broad set of equipment, he focused his application on a roughly one-mile area of the village where the problem was concentrated, and requested license plate readers, video, and ShotSpotter acoustic gunshot detection to address it directly.

Garey pulled language directly from the application itself. The Request for Application (RFA) states that applicants should demonstrate how proposed equipment supports the prevention and solving of violent crimes, particularly those involving firearms, and how it functions as part of the agency's broader community engagement strategy. He mirrored that language back in his narrative, tying every request to a specific outcome he could measure.

The result: Garey received full funding for everything he requested. He estimated the application itself took two to three days to complete, most of it spent pulling data and matching his narrative to what DCJS was asking for. From submission to award notification took roughly six to eight months.

A recurring theme in the webinar was that individual tools solve individual problems, but connected tools solve the agency's broader challenge. When it comes to gunfire, only about 20% of gunfire incidents nationally are reported through 911, which means most agencies are working from a fraction of the picture when they decide where to deploy resources.

ShotSpotter® closes that gap by detecting gunfire through acoustic sensors, verifying it through AI and trained acoustic experts, and delivering alerts to dispatch and officers in the field, typically in under 30 seconds. From there, PlateRanger™ automated license plate recognition surfaces vehicle activity near a verified alert, giving investigators a starting point without manually reviewing camera footage. PlateRanger uses an agency-controlled, opt-in data sharing model, meaning the agency owns its LPR data and decides who it shares with, rather than data flowing into a national network by default.

CrimeTracer then connects that vehicle or person of interest to more than a billion records across a nationwide law enforcement data sharing network, turning a single lead into a fuller investigative picture without requiring investigators to search multiple standalone systems. The newest piece, SafetySmart Field Agent, lets patrol officers, analysts, and command staff query that connected data in plain language, generating deployment maps, patrol recommendations, and reports without waiting on a dedicated analyst.

With applications due September 2, agencies have a narrow but workable runway:

1. Week one: Confirm eligibility, assign an internal project owner, and read the RFA closely.
2. Week two: Gather incident data and begin coverage area analysis and budget estimates.
3. Weeks three and four: Finalize the scope of technology requested, secure internal approvals, and complete the application.

Agencies that have never applied for a grant before shouldn't count themselves out. As Wood put it, funding tends to beget funding: agencies that can show measurable outcomes from an initial award are in a stronger position for every grant application that follows.

Agencies interested in the LETECH grant, or in building a longer-term funding strategy across federal, state, and private sources, can start with a one-on-one project fit discussion. SoundThinking's team has already worked through eligibility and application strategy with agencies across the state and can help identify which funding streams, beyond LETECH, make sense for a specific department's priorities.