Princeton City Council denies request to add school resource officers
PRINCETON, IN July 20 2018
The North Gibson School Corporation is currently assigned one school resource officer for all of its school buildings.
It is the best safety measure that assistant superintendent Eric Goggins said the school system can have. In January, funding for that position will be pulled.
“We feel confident that the best school security measure that you can have in place is having an armed officer, school resource officer certified presence within your school system,” said Goggins.
It is a $48,748.96 position in which 80% is paid for by the school system. through a state grant and match money. The rest came from the city of Princeton.
Police Chief Derek McGraw requested to increase the number of resource officers by two, but on Monday, the city council denied that request and also chose to de-fund the current officer.
“It’s my job to keep everybody safe and we have upwards of 2500 people between students and teachers Monday through Friday 180 days a year. That’s our responsibility. They didn’t agree with me on that so that’s where we’re at,” said McGraw.
In January, the city’s end of the funding will no longer be available to pay for a full-time resource officer. School administrators say they are willing to increase their spending on officers from $37,000 to $100,000.
However, they are now at the mercy of finding Princeton Police officers who are willing to work overtime covering shifts at the school buildings.
“It’s disappointing that we won’t at least continue with the services we’ve had in place for many, many years. But again that is their decision to make and we have to allow that to be their decision,” said Goggins.
Mayor Brad Schmitt sent a statement:
“Leaders across the country are working together to figure out how to solve one of the biggest problems facing society today. Monday night, July 16, the Princeton City Council not only voted against hiring two additional officers, thus making our schools safer, they then doubled down voting to defund the only School Safety Officer we do have starting in 2019.
This after they removed it from the agenda after I’ve asked it to be on there for the last 2 months. Our Police Chief, Derek McGraw, had to wait until public comment and force them to address this issue. Otherwise we still wouldn’t know where they stand on this as the school year quickly approaches.
To say I’m disappointed is an understatement but it doesn’t come as a surprise with this Council anymore. Time and time again they prove they have no desire to work together on ways to move our community forward. Their only answer to anything proposed is no while offering no suggestions or ideas of their own. And if that wasn’t bad enough, they often find ways to do harm and take this community backward as they just proved with this foolish move.
I am proud of the two Council Members, Bill Tuley and Jim Maglis, for finally taking a stand against the other three and voting in favor of making our schools safer.
They can claim they are saving money but at a time when we have dramatically reduced spending and have more than $1 Million in EDIT funds they won’t appropriate to use for economic growth, $13,000 in savings is an insult to people of Princeton when the school would be contributing more than $100,000.
I respect the fact it’s to their discretion what they support and don’t support but at a time when all other elected officials across the state and the country are trying to work together to solve this problem, I’m saddened for the kids, parents and employees of North Gibson School Corporation (which two of the councilmen are explored by) they don’t have a Council that cares enough about them to reallocate funds to increase school safety.
This is the same Council who’s president has repeatedly scolded our police chief for not pulling an officer off the road to sit in their Council meetings. For protection against who? The 5 people who show up? You read that right, our Council President thinks it’s more important to provide security for their Council meetings than it is for the kids in our schools. Of course this is the same Council who said we couldn’t afford a raise for City employees and then turned around and gave themselves health insurance for the first time ever to the tune of $18,000 a piece paid for by the taxpayers.
If this comes as a surprise to you, it shouldn’t. These are the types of decisions this council has been making since taking office. In a year and a half the people of Princeton will have a chance to do something about it by voting them all out!”
WFIE