A note to my fellow chiefs, from a retired one.
Every chief I’ve ever worked with keeps two lists. The first is what the department needs. The second is what the budget will actually cover. In most departments, the distance between those lists is measured in years.
That’s why I want to make sure you saw what New York announced on July 6: a new $75 million round of the New Law Enforcement Technology (LETECH) grant program for village, town, city, and tribal police departments and county sheriffs’ offices outside New York City. Awards are tiered by department size, from $100,000 for agencies with 10 or fewer sworn officers up to $6 million for the largest agencies. Roughly 500 agencies are eligible, and applications are due at noon on Wednesday, September 2, 2026. You can read the Governor’s announcement and find the RFA on the DCJS Current Funding Opportunities page.
If you lead a department in New York, you’re probably already sketching your application. Drones. Cameras. Body armor. Gunshot detection. All good choices — I’d be looking at the same list.
But before you finalize it, let me point you to four words in the eligibility guidance that most departments will read right past: parking and code enforcement.
That’s right. This round of LETECH explicitly names parking and code enforcement equipment and technology as eligible. Which means the system your people use to write tickets, manage permits, and collect fines could be modernized at no cost to your department’s budget.
“Chief, we have bigger problems than parking”
I know. I sat in that chair, and parking enforcement never once topped my list either.
Here’s what changed my mind after I retired and started working with departments across the country: parking enforcement quietly consumes an inordinate amount of a department’s time — officers, clerks, records staff, the person who fields every dispute call — and almost none of that work needs a badge. Handwritten tickets. Manual uploads at the end of a shift. Paper permit files. Payment disputes that take three phone calls to untangle.
A modern system like T2’s UPsafety can cut the time your team spends managing parking enforcement. For example, in-field observance saw a reduction in time to issue citations to 30 seconds with photo evidence.
*Based on in-field observations with a few UPsafety customers. Results may vary based on connectivity.
In a small department, that’s real capacity back on patrol. In a mid-size department, that’s a position you don’t have to fight for at budget season. And unlike almost everything else on your grant application, this line item pays the municipality back — in collected fines, permit revenue, and staff hours — year after year.
If you could get half that time back, and the grant covers the cost, isn’t it worth taking a look?
Parking data is police data
And let’s not forget what parking enforcement does for actual police work.
The notorious “Son of Sam” serial killer David Berkowitz was identified and arrested in 1977 because his car received a parking ticket at one of his crime scenes. That break didn’t come from luck. It came from a record.
Today’s version of that record is far more powerful. On a modern platform, every citation is photographed, time-stamped, and geo-coded automatically. Down in Gettysburg, PA — a UPsafety customer for over a decade — the parking manager will tell you the courts love the photo evidence, because every image arrives time-stamped and geo-coded, and appeals drop accordingly. Add license plate recognition and your enforcement route becomes a rolling data source: scofflaw hits, vehicles of interest, and a searchable history of where plates were seen, when.
Your parking operation is generating intelligence every single day. The only question is whether it’s landing in a database or in a shoebox of paper tickets.
What your neighbors are already doing
You don’t have to take my word for it — ask your peers.
The Village of Pelham, NY, in Westchester County, went live on UPsafety last July. Their two full-time parking enforcement officers and all 23 police officers work from the same rugged handhelds, with photo evidence required on every citation. Permits went virtual, residents pay online instead of lining up at Village Hall, and the village administrator now recommends the platform to his colleagues across the county.
Gettysburg, PA runs both parking and code enforcement — everything from expired meters to quality-of-life violations — on one platform, and generates more than $1.5 million in revenue annually, not including citation sales.
And just outside Philadelphia, Upper Darby Township, PA shows what it looks like when a police department owns parking enforcement outright. Enforcement there is a division of the police department itself, run by Lt. Lou Garay, who reports directly to the superintendent. His team manages permits, payments, and enforcement in one system on UPsafety and T2 MobilePay — a unified operation officers can actually see into. It’s a serious operation, too: after reorganizing the division in 2024, Upper Darby earned Accreditation with Distinction from the International Parking & Mobility Institute’s Accredited Parking Organization program — which the department says made it the first police department to earn that parking distinction
Different states, different sizes, same result: less time on paperwork, cleaner records, better collections.
What LETECH funds could cover
For a parking and code enforcement modernization, an application line item typically includes rugged handheld ticket writers, cloud-based citation management software, virtual permit management, license plate recognition (handheld, vehicle-mounted, or fixed), and an online portal where residents pay citations and manage permits without calling your front desk. Good news is all of this is included with UPsafety.
Two things your grant writer should know: the RFA excludes vehicles, firearms, and conducted energy devices, and applicants must comply with the state’s Local Cops, Local Crimes Act to receive funding. Both are spelled out in the RFA on the DCJS site.
Between now and September 2
Here’s the schedule as it stands:
- Now: See what modernizing would look like for your operation. A demo takes about 30 minutes.
- By July 31: Questions about the RFA are due to DCJS, with answers posted on or about August 5.
- Once you’ve seen the system: We hand you a quote formatted for your application.
- Noon, September 2: Applications due.
- Early fall: Awards announced. Contracts run January 1, 2027 through December 31, 2028.
The two-step play is simple: see a demonstration, and if it earns a spot on your application, submit the quote. That’s it.
Not in New York?
LETECH is a New York program, but it’s part of a pattern. Prior LETECH rounds have already put $127 million into 378 New York agencies, and other states run their own public safety technology grant programs. At the federal level, the Department of Justice’s COPS Office has invested more than $20 billion in policing since 1994, and equipment and technology funding opportunities open regularly on grants.gov.
My advice: call your state’s criminal justice services agency and ask what’s open right now. And whichever state you’re in, we’re glad to help you turn a demo into an application-ready quote — we’ve done it with departments across the country.
Don’t leave it on the table
Chiefs are practical people. When the state puts $75 million on the table and explicitly says parking enforcement technology qualifies, the practical move is to at least look. We’ve helped hundreds of police departments increase revenue and reduce the cost of parking enforcement, and we’d be glad to do the same for yours.
➡️ Book a demo — and let’s see if UPsafety belongs on your application before the window closes.
John Holland is a retired police chief with 41 years in law enforcement, including 10 as Chief of the Nutley, New Jersey Police Department. He now works with T2 Systems, helping departments in the northeast modernize parking and code enforcement.
FAQ
What is the LETECH grant? LETECH stands for Law Enforcement Technology. It’s New York State’s Law Enforcement Technology (LETECH) Grant Program, administered by the state Division of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS), which funds equipment and technology purchases for police and sheriff’s agencies outside New York City.
Is parking enforcement technology eligible for the LETECH grant? Yes. The current LETECH request for applications explicitly lists equipment and technology supporting parking and code enforcement as eligible, alongside items like drones, body-worn cameras, and records management systems.
When is the LETECH application deadline? Applications are due at noon on Wednesday, September 2, 2026. Questions about the RFA must be submitted to DCJS by July 31, with responses posted on or about August 5. Awards are expected in early fall, and grant contracts run from January 1, 2027 through December 31, 2028.
How much can my department receive? Awards are tiered by the number of full-time equivalent sworn officers, ranging from $100,000 for agencies with 10 or fewer officers up to $6 million for agencies with more than 1,001 officers. Roughly 500 agencies outside New York City are eligible.
What can’t LETECH funds be used for? The RFA excludes vehicles, firearms, and conducted energy devices. Applicants must also comply with New York’s Local Cops, Local Crimes Act to receive funding.
My department isn’t in New York. Are there similar grants? Yes. Many states run their own law enforcement technology grant programs through their criminal justice services agencies, and federal opportunities — including programs from the DOJ’s COPS Office — are posted on grants.gov. Contact your state agency to ask what’s currently open.
What does a modern parking enforcement system include? A modern platform like T2’s UPsafety includes rugged handheld ticket writers with automatic photo, time, and GPS evidence; cloud-based citation management; virtual permit management; license plate recognition; and an online portal for citation payments and permit purchases.
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