No police in schools for 2003-2004 school year

WASILLA -- The Matanuska-Susitna Borough School Board voted Wednesday not to submit a grant that would provide funds to place a police officer on school campuses around the district. The Safety Resource Officer Grant, which would have helped implement the School Resource Officer (SR0) program in the Mat-Su, provides federal government funds for three years to communities implementing this program through the U.S. Department of Justice Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS). Though the administration recommended passing this board item, a discussion of the board members ended with a 4-to-2 vote not to pursue the police in schools programs.

"I have a problem with a police officer in the schools," said board member Dan Contini. "We're not running an institution, we're running an education facility."

Both Contini and board member Robert Wells had issues with the funding breakdown. Though some of the funding would be provided by the grant and the City of Wasilla, the initial start-up cost to the district of $38,000 and the yearly cost of $19,340 in order to fund the program had some members worried, especially since the grant providing the rest of the funding for the program would only last three years.

"I'm concerned about the cost," Wells said. Many of the schools' principals have announced they will be able to help fund the program out of their own budgets, but no one has stepped forward and produced a clear outline of where they would get the money, except that some would come out of the discretionary supply account, which provides $150 per student per year.

Of the members physically present at the meeting, board member Linda Menard was the only one arguing for the approval to have the grant submitted.

"Unfortunately, we've got these little hoodlums in our schools," Menard said. "The principal of Wasilla [High School] is lobbying for this program. Having [police] there will help provide accountability because people will get caught quicker."

Menard and board member Sara Welton, who was available for the meeting via teleconference, both voted in favor of submitting the grant proposal. The rest of the board members voted to reject it.

The grant will be available again next year, said assistant superintendent of instruction George Troxel.