Public Safety Officers' Educational Assistance

Program goal(s) name: Higher education financial assistance Program goal(s) description: Provide financial assistance for higher education to the spouses and children of public safety officers killed or injured in line of duty. Program objective(s)

The PSOEA Program, an expansion of the Federal Law Enforcement Dependents Assistance (FLEDA) Program, provides financial assistance for higher education to the spouses and children of public safety officers killed in line of duty. The PSOEA Program also makes assistance available to spouses and children of public safety officers permanently and totally disabled by catastrophic injuries sustained in the line of duty.

The spouse and surviving children of federal, state, and local public safety officers receive the ultimate benefits from this program. The children may receive benefits for classes taken before their 27th birthday. (The maximum age of eligibility for surviving children will be extended by the amount of time a claim for death, disability, or education benefits has been pending before the Bureau of Justice Assistance in excess of one year.) There is no age restriction for spouses.

Assistance is available for the equivalent of 45 months of full-time assistance, or for a proportional period of time for a part-time program. Assistance is typically awarded in 4-month installments to coincide with the length of a school term.

Applicants may initiate an application by filing online at www.psob.gov, telephoning, or writing the PSOEA Program, PSOB Office, Bureau of Justice Assistance, 999 North Capitol Street, NE, Washington, DC 20531, (1-888) 744-6513 or AskPSOB@usdoj.gov.

Criteria for selecting proposals is determined as part of the notice of funding opportunity (NOFO).

All final award decisions will be made by the Assistant Attorney General, unless a statute explicitly authorizes award decisions by another official or there is written delegation of authority to another official. For successful applicants, JustGrants will send a system-generated email to the Application Submitter, Authorized Representative, and Entity Administrator with information on accessing their official award package in JustGrants. The award package will include key information (such as funding amount and period of performance) as well as award conditions that must be followed. The Authorized Representative for the entity should accept or decline the award within 45 days of the notification.

The review procedure for applications is specified in the notice of funding opportunity (NOFO) and generally includes eligibility and responsiveness, merit, programmatic, budget, and risk reviews.

In some cases, award periods may be extended if specific criteria are met. For details, please review the discussion of no-cost extensions in the Criteria for Award Extension section of the Department of Justice Grants Financial Guide available at https://www.ojp.gov/funding/financialguidedoj/overview

Applicable rights to appeal are provided in the notice of denial of funding.