Skelos Announces $43,000 In State Grants For The Rockville Centre Police Department

Village of Rockville Centre’s Police Department. The funding includes $20,000 to purchase body armor for Police Department personnel and $23,000 for scales to enforce truck weight limits within the Village.

“This funding will help make Rockville Centre and even safer place to live,” said Senator Skelos. “These grants will provide better protection to the Village’s police officers and enable them to stop overloaded commercial trucks from illegally using our roads.”

Currently, the 41 members of the Village’s patrol force are equipped with zylon body armor. Unfortunately, this material has been shown to degrade rapidly, thereby causing a subsequent reduction in the protective qualities of an officer’s bulletproof vest. The Police Department has received $11,570 from the Federal Bulletproof Vest Partnership Grant Program for replacement body armor. The $20,000 grant from Senator Skelos will cover the balance of the cost for this replacement body armor.

In addition, Senator Skelos provided $23,000 to purchase six wheel load scales. Although the Rockville Centre Police Department and the New York State Department of Transportation jointly conduct commercial motor vehicle inspections within the Village, they are often unable to enforce violations of applicable weight and load restrictions because they cannot obtain accurate weights of the vehicle and its load. These new scales will allow the Police Department to conduct comprehensive inspections of commercial motor vehicles and their drivers.

Overloaded commercial trucks require a greater stopping distance and are disproportionately responsible for traffic fatalities. In addition, overloaded trucks unduly burden property taxpayers by damaging our roadways. In fact, overloaded trucks cause up to $1 billion in roadway damage each year and one legal, 80,000 lbs. tractor-trailer truck does as much damage to road payment as 9,600 cars.

“The damage caused by overloaded trucks has a real impact on taxpayers,” said Senator Skelos. “Now, our police department will have the equipment it needs to enforce the law, make our streets safer and protect taxpayers.”

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