Voorheesville Central School District drops resource officer program
VOORHEESVILLE, N.Y. Sept 11 2019 Voorheesville parents were told in May that a new school resource officer would be taking over the school district.
However, when doors opened this week for students, an SRO was not present on school grounds.
Last year, the Voorheesville Central School District brought on a part-time school resource officer to patrol the schools. At the time, there were talks of bringing on a full-time SRO for this school year but due to budget cuts there isn’t an officer on staff at all, which has left some disappointed with the board’s decision.
“We should be doing all we can to make sure our kids are getting on the bus feeling safe, getting off the bus feeling safe, and spending the entire day at that school feeling safe,” said Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple.
That’s how Apple is feeling when he received word that the Voorheesville Central School District will not have a SRO for the 2019-2020 school year due to financial circumstances.
“A lot of districts are always struggling. There always trying to see what can we do to shift funds. We didn’t put much thought into it because we thought there was no way they were going to do away with the SRO program,” replied Apple.
A full-time SRO would have cost the district around $65,000 per year whereas a part-time SRO would’ve cost the district $35,000.
“Last year, we had given them the authority to utilize the money for some other security initiative and then next thing you know, they terminate the SRO. That was disheartening because it was almost like they weren’t being truthful with us,” replied Apple.
Mark Doody is currently serving as the interim superintendent for the school district.
Doody says he wasn’t a part of the budget talks. He says the prescription drug premium cost played a huge factor.
“As the specialty drugs come out, those cost are more significant and unfortunately, that created a deficit in the budget for the current school year so they had to make some reductions,” replied Doody.
Doody says parents in the community are working to come up with some fundraising efforts to bring back the SRO programbut it’s something Sheriff Apple says they shouldn’t have to do.
“I don’t want to see parents go above and beyond the taxes they pay now to do a GoFundMe page for an SRO. I appreciate their effort and love their effort but this is something that’s on the school board. They made this decision and they have to live with it,” said Apple.
Doody says they take safety very seriously.
He says they are actively working to figure out how to restore the SRO program.
WRGB
