RELEASE: Gottheimer Claws Back $1.2 Million in Federal Dollars for Public Safety in Passaic County

Above: Gottheimer Announces $1.2 Million in Federal Dollars for Public Safety in Passaic County.

BLOOMINGDALE, NJ — Today, October 19, 2026, U.S. Congressman Josh Gottheimer (NJ-5) announced that he successfully clawed back $1.2 million in new federal Homeland Security funding from Washington for Passaic County first responders, helping upgrade emergency communications, expand counterterrorism training, and strengthen public safety while delivering real tax relief for local families.

“When something goes wrong, the people who show up are the people standing right here. Today, I am proud to announce that we have clawed back $1.2 million in federal Homeland Security funding from Washington for Passaic County first responders, families, and towns. It shouldn’t be a fundraiser or a bake sale that decides whether a department can afford a working radio. I will always get the backs of our law enforcement, our firefighters, and our first responders,” said Congressman Josh Gottheimer (NJ-5), Co-Chair of the Law Enforcement Caucus and member of the Congressional Fire Services Caucus.

Video of Gottheimer’s announcement can be found here.

The federal investment Gottheimer secured will replace aging equipment and move Bloomingdale, Ringwood, Wanaque, and West Milford onto one interoperable communications standard, so police, fire, and EMS can communicate clearly and seamlessly across town lines when seconds matter most. By clawing back federal dollars to North Jersey communities and first responders, Gottheimer is helping lift high costs off local budgets, reducing the burden on Passaic County taxpayers to pay for essential public safety equipment and helping lower property taxes for local families.

The funding will be used as follows:

• Bloomingdale First Responders, $400,000 (including the $100,000 announced in September): Response drones, active-threat gear such as ballistic shields, armor, and breaching kits, and communications equipment upgrades.
• Ringwood First Responders, $300,000: A radio system upgrade, including new mobile radios in first-responder vehicles.
• Wanaque First Responders, $300,000: Upgrades to interoperable radio systems, strengthening communications between the department, dispatch, and surrounding towns.
• West Milford First Responders, $200,000: Radio communications upgrades.

Each department will also use part of its award for counterterrorism and other response training.

This investment builds on Gottheimer’s years-long work to claw more federal dollars back to North Jersey from Washington. This year alone, he has secured roughly $21 million in Homeland Security grant funding across Bergen, Passaic, and Sussex Counties for law enforcement, first responders, and the houses of worship and nonprofits that need protection. 

Since 2017, he has clawed back more than $17 million in COPS grants for police departments across the Fifth District, including $2.9 million for upgraded first responder radio systems in West Milford in 2023 and $750,000 for new officers in West Milford in 2024. Since coming to Congress, Gottheimer has helped increase the return of federal funds to the Fifth District by more than 357%, delivering an average savings of about $750 for each household in the Fifth District.

Gottheimer was joined by Bloomingdale Mayor John D’Amato, Bloomingdale Police Chief Daniel Greenwood, Passaic County Prosecutor Camelia Valdes, Passaic County Sheriff Thomas Adamo, Passaic County Commissioner Nicholas Veliky, Bloomingdale Councilman David Bronkhurst, Bloomingdale Fire Chief Frank Neuberger, Ringwood Police Chief Ronald Porta, Wanaque Mayor Dan Mahler, Wanaque Councilman Ed Leonard, Wanaque Police Chief Keith Spillane, West Milford Mayor Michelle Dale, West Milford Sgt. Anthony Frassa, Ringwood Councilwoman Yvonne Echols, local first responders, and community leaders.

Below: Gottheimer Announces $1.2 Million in Federal Dollars for Public Safety in Passaic County.

Gottheimer remarks as prepared for delivery:

Good morning, everyone. It’s great to be here in Bloomingdale, in beautiful Passaic County.

First, I want to start by thanking the hardworking people standing here with us today. Jersey’s finest. Our local police departments. Our Passaic County Prosecutor’s Office. Our Passaic County Sheriff’s Office. Everyone who answers the call, who stands in harm’s way, no matter the hour.

Every single day, rain or shine, late nights, early mornings, weekends, holidays, you put on the uniform, and you answer the call without hesitation. You put yourselves in harm’s way to keep our families and communities safe. You get our backs. And I want you to know, as ever, that I’ll always get yours.

Here in northern Passaic County, you cover a lot of ground. Long stretches of road. You roll up on a call at two in the morning, not knowing what’s on the other side of that door. 

You chase down a stolen car. You stand post for hours outside a house of worship because a threat came in overnight. You respond to a terrorist threat or a heart attack. You do all of that – and never miss the routine calls. The fender-bender, the alarm going off, the neighbor dispute. The job doesn’t slow down just because the risks get bigger.

When something goes wrong, the people who show up are the people standing right here. And, despite your deep ties with the community, our officers are increasingly doing it in an environment where you’re not always treated with the respect you’re due.

You aren’t just officers who protect us. You are our neighbors. You coach our kids’ teams, and you sit next to us at church and at the diner. 

Just over the last year, among others, you responded to a mother and her two children lost while hiking in West Milford, a live, fully charged grenade in Bloomingdale, a deadly house fire in Ringwood, a tragic, fatal crash in Wanaque, and those are just to name a few.  

We all know that being a cop today is more complex than it was twenty years ago.  

Today, our officers have to think about active shooters. Mass-casualty events. Threats against our synagogues, our churches, our mosques, our temples. Terrorist threats. Cyberattacks on the systems that keep our towns running, like our water systems and electric grid. Let’s be honest, it’s a different and fast-changing world. AI, cameras, drones, and real-time intelligence tools.

That is an enormous amount to ask of any officer, any department, any town. And, increasingly, our local and county departments don’t have the resources they need to keep up – manpower, training, updated radios, equipment, and communication systems.

Gear and training for the worst-case scenarios nobody wants to think about. But, every department has to be ready for those worst-case scenarios.

Let me talk about radios for a minute, because it sounds simple, but it is a matter of life and death.  Reliable radios are the backbone of any emergency response. When police, fire, and EMS can all talk on the same system, they share information and coordinate in real time. When they can’t, people get hurt.

On 9/11, many firefighters in the North Tower never got the order to evacuate because their radios couldn’t reach them. Police who saw the collapse coming were on a separate system that couldn’t warn them. We can never let that happen again.

It’s not just terrorism or crime. Communications break down in storms and in everyday emergencies, like in a car wreck, a storm, or a forest fire, when systems get overwhelmed or simply can’t link up. Aging equipment and systems that can’t talk to each other should never be what stands between a first responder and the person who needs help.

Many of the towns I represent in Passaic County told me they simply didn’t have the latest equipment to communicate, including where there are huge distances between towers and plenty of woods and roads in between. In times of crisis, we shouldn’t ever accept radios that don’t work with the radios in the town over or with dispatch.

It’s the same way I feel about training. I know how stretched our departments are for resources. There simply aren’t enough resources to pay for all the training that’s required, including everything officers need to fight the latest terrorist threat or handle everyday crime.

That’s why I proudly introduced bipartisan legislation called the Invest to Protect Act, which passed the House. It allocates resources for training, and recruitment and retention bonuses for our officers, who are facing more stress than ever.

It’s also why, since 2017, I’ve fought hard in Washington, and successfully clawed back to Jersey more than $17 million in COPS grants for police departments across the Fifth District.  I was proud to secure $2.9 million for upgraded first responder radio systems for West Milford in 2023. 

And in 2024, I secured $750,000 for West Milford to hire new officers as part of the COPS Hiring Program. But, that only solved part of the problem, and, as I said, these needs are changing fast, especially with our communications equipment.

It shouldn’t be a fundraiser or a bake sale that decides whether a department can afford a working radio.

So, over the last months, after hearing from the prosecutor, the sheriff, the PBA, mayors, state and local officials, and, of course, many of the police chiefs, I went back to work in Washington, with my colleagues in Congress and with the Administration.

Months of meetings. Months of calls. Months of negotiations. I took the needs of our district directly to the White House, to the Secretary of Homeland Security, and to FEMA to make sure Jersey gets the funds we deserve.

Today, I am proud to announce that we have clawed back $1.2 million in federal Homeland Security funding for Passaic County first responders, families, and towns.

Again, we are clawing back $1.2 million in federal dollars from Washington back to Passaic County. Those are dollars that are not coming from your property taxes and state income taxes – and they aren’t going to Moocher States like Alabama or West Virginia. They are coming back here, where they belong.

Let me break this out for you a little more. Of the $1.2 million, $400,000 will go to the Bloomingdale Police Department – including the $100,000 I announced on September 11th – for response drones and active-threat gear, like ballistic shields, armor, and breaching kits, and to upgrade their communications equipment. Another $300,000 will go to the Ringwood Police Department for a radio system upgrade, with new mobile radios in first-responder vehicles. $300,000 will go to the Wanaque Police Department to upgrade to interoperable radio systems. And $200,000 will go to the West Milford Police Department for radio communications upgrades. 

And every one of those departments will also use part of its award for the terror and other response training that I mentioned.

When implemented, this funding will replace and upgrade aging equipment, and move these departments onto one interoperable standard, so that first responders across town lines are not locked onto systems that can’t talk to each other.

The primary use of these funds is radio upgrades, so that multiple agencies can talk to each other directly, on one channel. In Wanaque, that means stronger radio communications between the department, dispatch, and the surrounding towns. In Ringwood, it means new radios in the vehicles themselves. When the State police, the local police, fire, and EMS can all reach each other in an emergency, they can coordinate faster and save lives.

These resources will also help purchase drones and active-threat gear in Bloomingdale. These give our officers more eyes where they need them, and help them respond to incidents safely. So, our first responders are ready when the worst happens.

This year alone, across Bergen, Passaic, and Sussex Counties that I proudly represent, we have now secured roughly $25.5 million in Homeland Security grant funding for our law enforcement, our first responders, and the houses of worship and nonprofits that need protection. 

Plus, I also helped claw back another $29.5 million in June for the state, which helped State Police, communications equipment, transit, for overtime for officers during the World Cup, counterterrorism, counter-drone operations, intelligence sharing, other threat training, and nonprofit security grants.

Finally, every police department in the Fifth Congressional District, including all of Passaic County – Bloomingdale, Ringwood, Wanaque, and West Milford – will receive $50,000 for counterterrorism training, because, as I said, it is not enough to have gear. This requires robust, sustained training, not just an informational binder on a shelf. 

Bloomingdale, Ringwood, Wanaque, and West Milford will each receive the resources for vital training as part of their award. 

By the way, the amounts I announced today are beyond and outside the traditional grants we fight to claw back every year – like LESO, $1 million for COPS, Byrne JAG, $1.48 million for AFGE, $965k for SAFER, and over $10 million in community-directed projects. Today’s numbers also don’t include the $1.7 million and $7.8 million over the last two years that I’ve already clawed back this year to protect our religious institutions in my district. 

One point I want to make – these are your federal tax dollars coming home to Jersey. We send billions of dollars to Washington every year. The question is: how much of that money actually comes back to Jersey? For far too long, the answer has been not nearly enough. My job is to fight for every dollar I can, and claw it back here, where it belongs. For every dollar I get back of your federal tax dollars to Jersey, that means one less dollar hitting your local property tax or income tax lines. That’s a big deal. 

That means federal dollars to help pay for a fire truck, like we did in West Milford in 2018, or equipment to keep firefighters safe, like oxygen masks or thermal imaging cameras, which I secured for Ringwood in 2020 and 2021.  

Historically, states like Mississippi have gotten about $4.38 back for every dollar it sends to Washington. West Virginia gets about $4.23 back.

But in New Jersey? We get about 67 cents on the dollar. That’s the lowest in the nation.

That’s unacceptable. Why should the “Moocher States” get our money, instead of it coming back home to you?

That’s why I’m fighting every day to claw back your federal tax dollars and bring them home to Jersey. Since I’ve been in Congress, we’ve increased what we bring back home by more than 357 percent, about $750 per family.

For you, that means lower property taxes, better infrastructure, and more money in your pocket. That’s what today is. Jersey families’ own federal tax dollars, coming back home to protect Jersey.  

Finally, I am so proud to stand here today. I am so grateful for everything these incredible public servants do for every single one of us, every single day.

I will always get the backs of our law enforcement, our firefighters, and our first responders. Keeping them, and our families, safe is not a partisan issue. This isn’t red or blue – this is just red, white, and blue, and about taking care of the families we all represent.

I know that if we keep working together to support our communities, here in the greatest country in the world, our best days will always be ahead of us.

Thank you. May God bless you, your families, and our first responders.

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