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Southern Arizona's four border counties will receive $9.85 million in federal money that will allow them to continue paying law enforcement officers overtime to focus on border enforcement.

The Department of Homeland Security announced the award Friday. The grant money is to be used in a program called Operation Stonegarden that allows law enforcement agencies to pay overtime or buy equipment to help the Border Patrol's efforts, said Laura Oxley, spokeswoman for Arizona's Department of Homeland Security.

Examples of the equipment include off-road vehicles, night-vision goggles and license plate readers, to name a few.

Arizona's total is a 36 percent increase from the last time Homeland Security gave out money for Operation Stonegarden in 2006, Oxley said. That time around, the state received $7.24 million.

The state's amount corresponds to 16 percent of the $60 million given out nationwide for Stonegarden. The only state that received more money was Texas, which got $13 million.

Arizona's money will be divided among four border counties:

● Yuma — $ 3.2 million

● Pima — $ 2.3 million

● Cochise — $ 2.3 million

● Santa Cruz — $ 2.1 million

Each county will distribute its share among sheriff's departments and city police departments. The counties must submit plans to the Border Patrol before receiving the money, which will likely be available within three months, Oxley said.

Santa Cruz County Sheriff Tony Estrada said the money would help deter smugglers and decrease all types of crime in the county.

"We're excited and grateful and needy," Estrada said. "What it does, it puts more people on the road for me. It puts people out there; it provides more security."

The department was down to its last $3,000 from the past grant, Estrada said.

Pima County only received a fraction of the $17 million it requested, said Capt. Frank Duarte, commander of the Pima County Sheriff's Department Homeland Security division.

"We are grateful for the money; however, the need is so tremendous that we could have used more," Duarte said.

The Pima County Sheriff's Department plans to use the money to pay deputies overtime to patrol known drug- and people-smuggling areas of the county, something they've been doing using money received in 2006. That money ran out, though, a few months ago, he said.

Pima County's share will be divided between the Sheriff's Department, Tucson police, Sahuarita police, Marana police, South Tucson police and the Tohono O'odham Nation, Duarte said.

The Tohono O'odham Nation will receive $175,500 of the grant money, said a press release from the office of Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz.