Council discussed the issue after the BOE recently passed a budget setting aside $250,000 for the $500,000 program.
Evesham Township Council hopes to have some members of council meet with members of the Board of Education before the end of the school year to determine if the two groups can reach a consensus on funding the district’s school resource officer program for next school year.
Members of council discussed the issue at their meeting last night as they commented on the BOE’s recent decision to include $250,000 toward the program in the district’s 2017–2018 budget.
The BOE’s decision to include the funds followed an announcement from council last month in which it said the township would no longer fund the program, set at about $500,000 year, which assigns full-time Evesham Township Police Department officers to the district’s school buildings throughout each school day.
In originally announcing the decision, council cited a belief that the school district, with a nearly $81 million budget compared to the township’s $36 million budget, should be able to find the money needed to fund the program, as council was unaware of neighboring townships with similar programs where the municipality paid for the officers instead of the local school district.
According to members of council, the Lenape Regional High School District also pays the township about $267,000 a year for the two officers stationed at Cherokee High School.
The K-8 district’s SRO program started in August 2015 as a shared services agreement between the school district and township to share four, part-time police officers.
However, after a security scare later that year where police arrested a juvenile with a replica gun outside of Van Zant Elementary School during after-school hours, council and the district expanded the program to its current incarnation to include more officers.
Council then agreed to fully fund the program for the following 2016–2017 school year to keep the issue of funding the officers isolated from the board’s discussions on whether to close Evans Elementary School as a cost-saving measure.
Mayor Randy Brown said while the township only looks to bill the Evesham BOE for about $500,000 for six, full-time officers next year, the $500,000 is the rate for starting officers, despite the township using decade-plus veterans in the schools, which Brown said brings the true cost of the program closer to $725,000.
“Some of the things that the district has decided to purchase in the last 12 months include lockers, a phone system, toilets, another auxiliary loudspeaker system … so they’ve spent plenty of money over there where there’s a big difference between needs and wants,” Brown said.
Brown said he believed the next step is for elected officials from both sides to sit in a room with the police chief to try to determine a direction for the SRO program moving forward.
Deputy Mayor Steve Zeuli said he also believed the district should be able to find ways to make the program work within their budget.
“I always thought our school district was going to be able to come back up to the plate and fund this program just like every other district I know where they fund the security of their schools,” Zeuli said.
Councilmember Ken D’Andrea reiterated points he made at council’s last meeting on how he believed it might be time to reevaluate the program to determine the necessity of keeping the current level of officers and the hours they serve.
“Assuming eight hours at all schools or the entire school day at all schools, perhaps that may not be necessary. That’s for our friends at the school district to decide and evaluate, so maybe the cost of the program can then bring itself down,” D’Andrea said.
D’Andrea also suggested the possibility of the district using a referendum to let voters decide the issue.
