For a grant program to be known as the Senator Charles E. Shannon, Jr. community safety initiative, to be administered by the executive office of public safety and security to support regional, multidisciplinary approaches to combat gang violence through coordinated programs for prevention and intervention, coordinated law enforcement, including regional gang task forces and regional crime mapping strategies, focused prosecutions and reintegration strategies for formerly incarcerated persons; provided, that the secretary of public safety and security shall distribute grant funds through a competitive grant program that gives preference to applications that: (i) demonstrate high levels of youth violence, gang problems and substance use in a region; (ii) demonstrate a commitment to regional, multi--jurisdictional strategies to deal with such community safety issues, including written commitments for municipalities, law enforcement agencies, community--based organizations and government agencies to work together; (iii) clearly outline a comprehensive plan that establishes measurable outcomes for municipalities to work with law enforcement, community--based organizations and government agencies to address gang activity; (iv) outline measurable outcomes that demonstrate program success, detail a plan for collecting data related to achieving said measurable outcomes and commit to sharing the data with the executive office; (v) make a written commitment to match grant funds with a 25 per cent match provided by either municipal or private contributions; and (vi) identify a local governmental unit to serve as the fiscal agent; provided further, that clusters of municipalities, in partnership with nonprofit organizations and other agencies, including district attorneys' offices, may apply for such grant funds; provided further, that such grant funds shall be considered 1--time grants awarded to public agencies and shall not annualize into fiscal year 2028 or subsequent years; provided further, that administrative costs for successful grant applications shall not exceed 10 per cent of the value of the grant; provided further, that no grant funds shall be awarded to the department of state police; provided further, that not later than August 14, 2026, the executive office shall publish guidelines and an application for the competitive portion of the grant fund program; provided further, that not later than December 15, 2026, grant funds shall be made available to applicants; provided further, that not later than 60 days after the distribution of grant funds, the executive office shall submit a report to the executive office for administration and finance and the house and senate committees on ways and means detailing the distribution of grant funds; and provided further, that not later than March 3, 2027, the office shall submit a report to the house and senate committees on ways and means that shall include, but not be limited to: (a) the number of young adults served by the grant program during fiscal year 2027; (b) executive summaries of the programs currently operating under the grant program; and (c) outcomes and findings that demonstrate program success from the grant awards from fiscal year 2026
