When doors swing open to students at Litchfield public schools in September, a police officer will also be in attendance.
Assigning a full-time officer to the school has been a topic of discussion for months. A contract approved by the Litchfield City Council on Aug. 6 will begin action to put a school cop’s boots on the ground.
The officer would be a city, not a school employee, but the school will reimburse the city $50,000 per year to hire a full-time school resource officer, or SRO.
The school will also provide office space. That amount won’t come close to covering the full cost of a salaried officer, equipment, benefits, training and other expenses, which could total $114,000 to $115,000 per year, city officials pointed out.
But $50,000 is “well within the line” of what other cities with SROs are receiving, City Administrator Dave Cziok said, and the agreement represents the “best fit contract that can be supplied to both boards.”
As Litchfield Police Chief Pat Fank told the council, his officers have been spending an increasing amount of time at the schools in recent years, anyhow.
Officers are often called to respond to criminal activity and motor vehicle accidents at or near school property. A growing desire to have police take part in education (such as the fifth-grade DARE program) and on student-related teams, especially for young people with mental health and/or probation issues, have officers on school property already. There are also frequent requests for traffic control and security at games, prom and other events.
Fank told the council that police presence at the school sometimes totals 20 to 30 hours per week. During the summer months, it is significantly less, but his department could then use the SRO to fill in for other officers’ vacations and for seasonal patrol in the parks.
Fank pointed out that the school will be using an SRO approximately 70 percent of the time, but that he would have access to an extra officer 100 percent of the time the SRO is on duty.
Litchfield Public Schools Superintendent Beckie Simenson told the council that an SRO will not replace school personnel as chaperones and supervisors at events, but would add police presence. The officer’s schedule would be flexible enough to permit his/her attendance at some games and events, and if an SRO is needed more than 40 hours per week, the school would incur additional charges.
Several city councilors noted that state or other grant money to subsidize SROs may become available.
To hire a 10th police officer, Cziok said, the city’s 2019 budget and levy would need to be increased, or re-allocations made. The resolution approved by the council calls for a one-year contract with an option for the city to extend it for another year, pending review.
