 First I'd like to start start with the roll call this evening Fallon bird Bonet Doyle graph here Manny Montemire Moody Perez Rindflash Stefan here man Akron Vanduili Longerman Werner Wettiger 14 present We have a quorum On that we'll call the meeting to order and ask for approval of the minutes of our March 1st 2004 meeting I have a motion and a second to approve a minutes for a previous meeting are there any additions or subtractions Very not all those in favor signify by saying aye Turbo it's aye opposed. They're being done the motion passes the minutes stand approved. I Guess first I'd like to welcome everyone here this evening We're doing this a little different to facilitate not having to move the screen up and down I think this should work out for this presentation quite well first. I'd like to welcome everyone and thank you for coming to the final Committee of the whole meeting for this council year Tonight's presentation by the shabuigan department police department is on a program that is very important to our community And its future the school resource officers program This has a direct impact on the young people in the city of shabuigan I believe there are many misconceptions regarding this program and hope we will be able to come to a better understanding of the school resource Officers their impact on our children our community in our future as a great city And I would like to introduce chief Kirk to kick us off Good evening. Thank you, mr. Chair. I Say thank you once again for allowing us to be present again in front of this committee the whole To present another brief Program on this program. I think it's extremely important the school resource officers I have asked them to be present tonight to answer any questions. You may have of them. I Wish to say thank you to lieutenant Johnson who supervises directly supervises the school resource officers Once again, I don't want to take too much time. We have a number of people present here tonight I just wish to say thank you once again for listening when it comes up for a contract Negotiations or renegotiations in the end of June. I know last year there were some issues that came up some Issues and questions and I wish at this time to least at least give you a brief knowledge or a brief Presentation to get you up to speed as to what the program is what it consists of what it doesn't consist of its advantages disadvantages as I said before I strongly support this program and Without further ado, I like to at least if I could let the people who are present here tonight Identify themselves. So if you have a question, you can direct it to them or if you have a question for me Certainly, you can direct it towards me, but Terry if you could first start off Steve Lockwood. I'm the resource officer of course mainly in the Farmsworth. No schools There's I'm Bruce Christiansen. I'm the police last officer at Southeast school Deputy chief Bob ways associate principal at Chewbacca, North High School Todd de Bruyne associate principal at Farmsworth middle school The bench high school principal south Rick Schultz principal of our high school Al Kilbrace assistant superintendent for an area school district Bill Branson director of behavior or health services at Chewbacca Memorial I'm Ross Krables game the principal of horseman middle school El Sherwin deputy chief operations Don Swanson Thank you for all of you for coming tonight and Jeffrey if you wish to start us as the chief indicated We really appreciate the opportunity to have a chance to speak to you Clarify some questions on what I think is an often misunderstood program but you had a very valuable program for the entire community and As the chief pointed out especially for the youth of our community. I'm going to run through these slides and then We want you to use this opportunity to ask any questions that you have of Me of any of the people that are here and hopefully that Everybody will leave here with a little better understanding what this program is and isn't The first slide I'm putting up is the high school student population oftentimes I think We underestimate just how big of a population our school resource officers are dealing with you'll see that The two high schools are in effect the size of small cities and of themselves and we have one officer assigned to each of these high schools and By no means is that over staffing when you look at Cities of that nature would have several officers that would patrol a community of that size go to the middle schools and Probably the most significant thing of this slide is The close proximity there is to the populations of each school why that's significant is Urban has a school resource officer assigned and horseman and farnsworth It's necessary to split the time between those two schools Officer Steve Lockwood is responsible for those schools and he's forced to split his time Because that's the only available staffing that we have at this point so that we felt that was significant We weren't sure how many people were aware that that was a situation that we were splitting time and Wanted to make sure that that was identified to everyone This is our current staffing. We have one officer assigned to north high school One officer assigned to south high one officer assigned to urban middle school And then as I pointed out one officer splits time between farnsworth and horseman another significant Point that I think is often either misunderstood or just hasn't been brought out enough is that the school district provides funding for two full-time police officers In effect, we would lose two officers if if we broke away from this current Contract and and the way this system is set up so there are two full-time police officers that are funded by school district funds and I think that's a that's a very significant statistic This next slide is a sampling of the complaints handled by our four Resource officers. This is from September 1st through mid-March 2004 Officer John winter compiled these There's always gonna be some that slipped through the cracks as far as being miscoded and stuff but this gives you a rough idea of the the vast volume of complaints that they handle and I'm sorry and more significantly See if I can go back to that one More significantly. I think the bottom part tells you The variety a lot of these cases if they were Offenses committed by adults it would mean jail time. It would mean significant Penalties these these school resource officers are dealing with some serious problems some of them are of a nature that Possibly could be handled within the school But many of them are criminal acts that need the intervention of a police officer And if the police officer wasn't there, we'd have to pull an officer out of a district off the road We'd have to get the body somewhere because these are these are incidents that couldn't just be ignored and couldn't just be handled within the school structure itself I'm going to go into this shaboy in police department the SRO is the acronym for school resource officers So you'll see that throughout the presentation. I'm going to go into their duties and responsibilities and Why they're significant and how our operations would be affected if this program was not in place? And we'll give you some examples of how significant these things are on an average our school resource officers see three students per day And it's for a variety of issues some of them are listed their truancy smoking harassment theft drugs and alcohol and Sex assaults. You'll see that it runs the gamut. Could some of those be handled without police intervention? probably Possibly, but do some of them definitely need police intervention? Yes, and again if we pulled the school resource officers out of the school system The police response would have to come from somewhere and that would be the district officers and it would put a tremendous burden on an already Overworked staff that's that's understaffed on many days And to try and pull somebody to handle these responsibilities at the school would be extremely difficult On a weekly basis the school resource officers have contact with social workers parents probation agents Administrators guidance counselors all the persons and other police agencies why this is significant is chief Kirk has instituted a Philosophy throughout the Department of Community policing nothing is more important with community policing than collaborative efforts And this points out true collaboration they work with a wide variety of people within the structure of government within the public itself Like it says guidance counselors parents Could a district officer do some of this on a small scale? Yes, but the district officers would have other Responsibilities they wouldn't be able to establish these liaisons at south that north at urban They would have other responsibilities here our school resource officers are making significant strides towards their community policing effort Lastly the school resource officers attend athletic events dances and extracurricular activities The significance of this is our resource officers bring back valuable information to our patrol staff Some of these might seem like minor events But our resource officers are inside the schools know the culture of the school They know if a particular athletic event is going to prompt Possibly some hard feelings. Maybe there's a particular rivalry They hear and know things that are going on that might require additional officers to be there They know what type of staffing we need dances for instance can at times bring out some gang activity the officers by being in place in the school provided a tremendous amount of intelligence and Allow us to put our resources where they're needed Continuing with the responsibilities. They obviously assist with the apprehension of truan students both at The school immediate school area and away from school if need be They work with families and school officials to arrange counseling for troubled students If you have questions on that, I'm sure that school administrators and school Personnel are prepared to speak on the effectiveness of this Bill Bronson is here with mental health and can speak highly of the interventions that he's seen throughout his years that he's been affiliated with the school resource program and As I said earlier that I'm sure they'll be very happy to answer any questions or speak to those issues The officers maintain contact with and have a relationship with students and learn of any potential problems and take actions prevent criminal activity from occurring This is so important and so valuable to how we allocate our manpower and our resources These officers are there on a daily basis and what they intervene in and prevent you saw the statistics that how many complaints they actually handle You can probably double that or more with what they've intervened and prevented an officer from having to go there and Investigate and follow up on and by intervening and preventing and having these relationships and contacts They're heading off what could be Countless man always a follow-up investigation That's always necessary if we get there after the fact after the event occurred now You have to interview witnesses you have to re-interview people and you have to get to the bottom of it These officers are there and intervene and actually save us a lot of work They work with school staff to develop policy and procedures regarding school safety And I'll go into some more issues regarding school safety, but they're a valuable legal resource for the school administrators and staff as they make these decisions When it comes to school safety and school resource officers, they obviously patrol the school grounds They investigate any criminal activity that's occurring or as reported to possibly be occurring They monitor and investigate gang activity. This is Extremely important. I think it became very obvious During the mid 90s. We took a very proactive approach as a city of Sheboygan and city of Sheboygan police department we initiated a gang unit and Took the approach that we wanted to gather intelligence. We wanted to stay on top of things I think we've done an excellent job of that. This is one more offshoot to that They gather the intelligence help us stay on top of things and try and stay ahead of the game Do we get caught off guard occasionally? Absolutely, but by having them in place. They're able to monitor and gather information for us They detour deter loitering by unauthorized visitors and trespassers Extremely important when you're dealing with juveniles. You're dealing with a group of individuals that are vulnerable and Especially if you have adults young adults on there It's so easy to victimize this age group and having the school resource officers on the campus to try and deter that type of activity Is invaluable? They assist with medical emergencies They're first responder. They're trained just as our officers on the street are and Certainly, they're one of the first ones there if the schools require their assistance And the assistant the physical control of disruptive or violent students it prevents them from having to wait for a squad to respond possibly from a Quite a distance or if all our cars are tied up They could have extended waiting periods here in the panic of having a violent or a disruptive student We have officers on campus that can respond more quickly and they identify and gather information on students suspected of drug activity The significance of that became apparent just in the last couple months There was a well-publicized event in which Student from South High was arrested during the course of a drug warrant and subsequent search of the home Officer Christiansen at South High had Knowledge of this individual's activities and had been feeding that information to the drug unit prior to the this event taking place so their ability to identify and gather information on students is Is a tremendous asset both to our patrol division and to our drug unit and They apprehend wanted or unwaist students A number of times officers will come to roll call and they'll say I'm looking for so-and-so. I'm looking for this person. This person's wanted Bruce. Could you go check Terry? Could you go check if they're in school and these school resource officers respond immediately and give us the opportunity to Take those people into custody when otherwise we would have to do a lot of other research. They're there to help The ultimate in school safety is a school resource officer role in a critical incident by critical incident. I'm referring to an Overwhelming incident such as Columbine. We certainly hope that nothing like that will ever occur again Now that it's several years removed from everybody's memory things have died down But in the aftermath of Columbine school safety was an extremely hot topic The possibility of having a critical incident at any school in America was foremost on anybody's mind And by having a school resource officer in there. It's obvious that they'll likely be the first response They'll be that first person that can possibly engage and try and stop this critical incident. They're there to protect the students and staff Probably the most important is they are able to control coordinate our patrol response It's going to be chaotic no matter what happens in an event like this But now we'll have somebody on the inside that can coordinate this response and the last thing and Something they've all engaged in is Instituting and participating in pre-planning. I think our school system our school district and our city is probably ahead of the curve As far as the number of cities our emergency response team Practices in each one of the schools throughout the district the school resource officers have been instrumental in setting up that type of program Giving the school or giving the emergency response team an opportunity to know the buildings giving us an opportunity to pre-plan We've rehearsed that Horace Mann and actually had a simulated shutdown where we locked the building down So the the staff and the students know what could be expected in that kind of circumstance Again, we always hope that something like that will never occur But I think again, we're ahead of the curve by being a little bit more prepared than other cities Some of the prevention efforts again. This is something I think the school administrators and school officials can speak to even better than I can but Our resource officers conduct class presentations on criminal justice and related topics It adds to that bond that they have with all the students and with the staff and creates a positive environment and hopefully Creates that bond that heads off some some future problems They initiate contact with local businesses directly affected by school day operations a classic example of that is the new stores at Northgate Officer Mauer Recognize the need to contact them make them aware of what they might expect from the schools at North High or from the students at North High And what they could expect from him he distributed a letter he distributed his business card So they could come to him have a first contact and head off some problems if they were having some difficulty with the students They knew they could go to officer Mauer now that that's something that we would lose if we couldn't have these these officers in the school They plan special youth programming again a preventative thing. I think to establish a different view of law enforcement and break down some of those Concepts and make them more willing to talk to officers They work with citizens living near the schools to address issues that may arise in neighborhoods. I think Alderman van der Wille You've experienced that firsthand. We had somebody up near north and north and urban Officer Mauer and Officer Meyer Listen to the complaints in that area and are trying to address them on a as needed basis So they work closely with the citizens talk to civic groups about youth issues Address the parent-teacher organizations on a variety of issues They're there to address whatever needs may arise if it's something in the aftermath of something like Columbine where they need to Be reassured about the safety of our schools our officers are there to address that if they need some information about drug awareness drug prevention Our officers are there if they need some advice on safety issues bullying issues our officers are there to address and help out school administration and school resource officers our School administration has invited our officers to serve on school district committees planning committees Assist in the planning and implementation of programs in each and every one of the schools They serve on building consultation teams to develop strategies to assist students and plan for a safe Healthy environment in the schools There are resource for legal questions from the school staff. That's obvious I mean who better than a police officer to advise the school staff rather than having to make a call down to city Hall track somebody down trying to find a resource They've got a resource in the building that can address legal issues and give them the perspective of a law enforcement officer on how to handle certain situations They instruct that staff in service training as needed if the school Administration perceives a need that can be best addressed by law enforcement our officers are there and available to address their staff in service training Some of the challenges for school resource officers nationwide And they're quite significant and this this isn't just in Sheboygan nationwide 16,000 crimes per school day in the United States Schools all across the country have recognized the need for school resource officers. This is an expanding program Rather than backing away from it more and more cities and schools are embracing the concept and expanding their programs There's national and statewide school resource officers associations being formed and it's it's a thing that's moving forward and and a valuable tool There are more special needs students I think Al you said that you would speak to that issue if you have questions on what we mean by that But this again is nationally and and Al Calabres confirmed that in our city It's no different there are more special needs more at-risk students that our school resource officers need to deal with on a daily basis And they're more prepared to deal with it than just a district police officer That happens to be assigned to the south side of the city or the north side of city that has a school in it sure Not all the question was are they all that straight? No And if maybe you can speak to that if you want to wait till I'm I went through a couple more slides or Do you like him to address that Special needs students are housed throughout the school district are most severe Emotionally disturbed students are housed at strife But every building every high school every middle school do have emotionally disturbed Programs for students. It's just a level of severity, but our special needs students are everywhere Next issue alcohol drugs and gangs. I guess that needs no further comment. It's clear that those are issues facing Schools and communities nationwide and sheboygan is no different than that the fear of islands There are many studies done that having a school resource officer does aid in That confident feeling that families and students have That their children are being educated in a safer environment And they're there to address like I said earlier issues of bullying and those type of things This these final couple slides I won't kind of put in there for food for thought and it does speak to what the Mayor just addressed on the former US Secretary of Education Pointed out that we have students bringing firearms to schools must be removed from the regular classroom They are continued to be concerned about what happens those trouble students who are expelled from school And that doesn't mean just for bringing firearms, but if you're expelled from The normal school shall we say are you at the traditional school? Where do they go 20% of them attend alternative schools? We as I'm sure many of you are aware have alternative high schools We call them strive and alternative school in our main Building down here at 830, Virginia Avenue. Well that school since September 1st through mid-March. We've had 171 police-related complaints Responding responding to strive an alternative And there's no school resource officer presently assigned to that school. I hear it on a daily basis The officers that are assigned to that district. They know that they're probably going to be there at least once Sometimes more than once often after the fact after something has occurred. It's going to require man hours of follow-up sorting through witness statements that are sometimes co-mingled with stories that they've heard from other friends because we're there after the fact and It's something that I've heard that we probably Could use a school resource officer in that position because of the at-risk students that are there and the calls that volume of calls that we get and That's all that I have on the the slides Excuse me each of these slides that I had is in the presentation that I left at each desk In addition to that there's two letters behind there one from Carla Vorpal I'm a school psychologist and then another one from Jeff craning private practice psychologist who's had exposure to our School resource officers and their intervention programs the last three items our newspaper articles Two of them are from outside of the city of Sheboygan One is from inside the city of Sheboygan the two from outside. I thought were significant one deals with a grade school or Several grade school students who brought a gun to their grade school and hit it in the sandbox with an intent to assault A fellow student who teased them. This is grade school And then the other one is a middle school student who committed suicide in front of his fellow students and I kind of skipped over it during the Slides, but if you look at the slide where we talk about the number of complaints our officers up to mid-march when these statistics were Tabulated had done what we referred to as a chapter 51 They had done seven of those chapter 51s and chapter 51 is an involuntary mental commitment Where the officer is confronted with an individual in these cases students who are so despondent or Suffering such mental trauma that the officer feels that they're a danger to them self or others to the point that they need to be Involuntarily committed now up to mid-march they dealt with seven of them now There's been 12 and that was as of a couple days ago. So I mean the statistics are continually mounting This is a significant number. It's a time-consuming thing But once again, it's a thing where these officers are in the schools on a daily basis They get to know these students they know when the danger signs are there and they intervene and who knows, you know How many lives they've saved? in the process of doing that And then the last article that I put in there is local newspaper article on The South High student that's facing the drug charges just to remind her that it is happening in our community And I think you'll find on one of those newspaper articles I believe it was the one where the child brought the gun and hit it in the sandbox the final quote is that this is a very small city and The school administrator says this is just a reminder this can happen any place at any time And I thought that was a very significant quote Certainly we want to entertain any questions got the entire group here and they're all Just chop me at the bit to answer questions and talk to you First I would thank you for this at this point what we'd like to do now is lower the screen so that I can turn the microphones on for console ask questions and you can answer If I could just feel some of the time I'll take advantage real quick I Want to say thank you once again. I want to say congratulations to those alderman who have been Reappointed re-elected. I think one of the greatest programs that I'm extremely proud of is the school resource officers I had my two daughters at North High School And it was very very very reassuring to know we had an officer up there to know that if there was a problem I could go talk to him or they would relay information to me as far as what's going on And and that's just an excellent feeling deep inside To know that these guys do care they give a hundred ten percent And we we do have the granddaddy of all school resource officers and Bruce Christians and he's been around the longest in the state he may look like it but They they are very committed to this program and I think if you look at those statistics those there were eight Weapon complaints that they had dealt with during this time period of the probably a six month period of stats So there are weapons that we do find and there are drugs and everything of that. So that's all I had to say Mike I Think you chief on that Council open a floor to any questions and see if we can get them answered Alderman Manny Thank you two very simple detail questions Number one chapter 51 is applicable to young adults up until the age of 18. Is that correct in? Secondarily do officers wear a uniform in school. I don't think so Chapter 51 is a emergency commitment. It's a mental commitment, and it's of anyone at any age It could be young adults could be adults It's just when someone is threatening Injury to themselves or to others or as of risk to themselves as far as uniforms. They do not however we have Tweaked the program in a sense that we require them to work the road periodically in uniform So it's a consensus. I believe we've discussed this over the years and there's some thought on wearing of uniforms There's some thought not wearing of uniforms. I think at this point We are still the belief that we do not wear uniforms in the schools But I don't I don't believe the school system would be opposed to that I think at the present time when we discuss this and perhaps if you guys wish to Put some in but basically no they do not Alderman moody Thank You mr. Chairman. How many kids are in that strive program? Yeah, there's a hundred twenty students that I was saying but I Believe that was a hundred seventy-one complaints. We had From strive already this during that time period feel that was the number you were looking at 171 complaints Strive is becoming a concern for us In the sense that we're beginning to get called there more and more and more and it's of Need to be there's some needs here that need to be addressed It's it should probably have a school resource officer or someone tied tied to it I just wonder if Betty were you referring to how many are in In the program in the central facility but not involved in anything else, right? Yeah, Alderman Stefan I too wanted to thank Department for the presentation I Won't put the chief on the spot tonight, but I think you know just looking at this we can see there might be a need for full-time officer at Farnsworth or horseman obviously that was pointed out the strive case pointed out and we need officers for the new drug here And I think you know it's incumbent upon you at some point in time to prioritize those needs to us because I don't know How we could possibly prioritize them if you don't Fish tailing off that question. I guess is I am aware that the school board And I don't know if this is better for Alderman Prez or me being mr. Calabresa school board has like a plan in case we drop our funding And I guess I don't know if they'd want to articulate that I mean obviously it's not going to go to zero from what I'm told I don't know exactly what it is, but I guess you know that might be part of the prioritization process They just like to hear that I'm not aware of the program so First I'd like to say any plan we're putting in place will not replace what we have I Just want to make that very clear We feel strongly enough about having school security And school resource officers that we are looking at other options of what we would do to provide some of the same services They will not be exactly the services we have But for our staff and for our students that plan is not complete We were kind of hoping to get a sense of tonight where we may be headed But we are looking and exploring a variety of options at this time, but I don't have enough details to make That of any value at this point Would be alderman groff yes, um Has there been any thought given to or any possibility of utilizing the sheriff's department in in conjunction with with The program here to do a county wide thing The county I can ask Jeff however, the county does counteract which is a different program um, they do do some Well, it's drug education. However, they do The iron is involved in some schools. I'm not sure their involvement in and Maybe bruce or the resource officers. They don't have any now at this time. Okay. They did at one time. Okay So no Hold them in wangaman Thank you, mr. Chairman. Just a comment if I may it's not hard to see that Drugs and associated problems are increasing in the schools and on the streets Now I would like to remind the members of the council and the city that the police department is at present Three men below their authorized strength and by authorized strength I mean this council right here authorized them to have a certain number of men and are three men below that number So I think it's time that we bring that up to date. Thank you Thank you alderman wangaman alderman manny Thank you, mr. Chairman. Um question about money I'm wondering about uh, high school events, especially athletic events and the such Um, is there overtime that goes into that for our officers? Or is there kind of a comp time kind of a flex schedule in place? I'd have to ask uh, deputy chief sure and however, uh The overtime if it's accumulated is paid for By 50 percent by the school district. So, um I'm not sure jeff. I'm not sure in the monal over time or the amount of hours you put in at the school events I think it's significant to note that in many of those If the school resource officers weren't in place There would still be a police presence at many of these events, especially if we anticipated problems So there would be overtime recurred and sometimes it's actually reduced by the presence of the school resource officers saying We maybe only need this manager. Their intelligence is Not as valuable to how how we staffed But if they weren't in place At the right times we actually over staffed because we would have to be prepared Second money question um In our schools the high schools. We have students from the The towns of as opposed to the city as well Uh, the school system brings in revenue from both the towns and the city I'm wondering what number of students are not from the city, but from the towns We're paying for two officers. The school system basically paying for two What's that ratio of students outside sheboygan's city to those within the city? I'm not aware of it. Um, however, they're all from the school district But you you make a point where the city police officers are in right um I'm not sure I really don't have the exact number of students. I know we have students from the town of wilson town of sheboygan mozal and A variety of others. Um, I really don't know that exact number I could get it for you and you know, I can have it to you tomorrow if you would like Okay, thank you alderman manning alderman burg Not a stride program. That's under the jurisdiction of health and human services, right? It's joint now most of those instructors net over there are We're on the county payroll, aren't they? I wouldn't say the majority over actually sheboygan area school district employees 25 probably Well there I see where they could uh Come in come in to play there. Uh as far as financially, you know The county could be putting in some dollars for uh for an officer there if there was an officer needed that like you say Thank you alderman burg Alderman graff, thank you. I'm third of money question. Um 50 percent is paid for by the school district the other 50 percent is paid by the taxpayers of the city sheboygan, correct? It's correct. Okay. Uh any further questions from the committee I'm mayor shrimp Thank you. Thank you, mr. Chairman chief and al On your plan you're reorganizing The program right now as you said be a few minutes ago. You're looking at If we have to do without the sROs We need to put it some plan in place. Okay. How soon will we know of the plan? I guess our response is when we know whether we're going to have the sROs The four you have now or another one to go to the we're just From our standpoint, we see the need for more. We'd be happy to contain what we have Okay, be supported Our board has not talked about the fact that if we even expanded by two whether we could afford to expand by two Which would be expanded by one for us? We have not discussed that. Okay. We're just hoping to maintain before we happen this time And chief you're well aware of All that you're into discussions I've been made aware of the uh the concern of the student populations at the middle schools We spoke of this issue probably two years ago Into neck or last year where all of a sudden the issues began to uh to arise Especially now since september Strive is becoming a concern and we're going to have to look at this because we have had 171 complaints out of strife From september till march 1st one of those those dates where It's a concern now. We're spending a lot of officers times there and if we speak on budgets and of dollars Al don't listen, but if we're going to spend this number of of hours Sending officers there would only make sense to me that if there's a real need a real concern Then let's address the concern and have the school district pay for half of it Because there is a need because we're sending our officers over there a lot It's like lieutenant johnson said almost on a daily basis sometimes twice Uh, no, they do have some employees there. I know there is uh one One officer from another community who works there on a part-time basis or at least used to him I would think he's still there. I'm not sure However It's a concern. It's a need and we're going to have to do something to address this So, uh, there is a great benefit. I see in the school district paying half of the salary and half the overtime Of that particular officer. I guess that's what I'm asking you if it's a concern You know, let's not wait too long if this is going to be one of your priorities and with the school district working together Let's lay it out on the table far enough ahead. So when we get down to the budget We know and we have to prioritize that this is going to be part of our budget. So we're not going back and forth. It got kind of Lost last year in a shuffle a little bit and there's a lot of discussion on what we're going to fund and what we're going to fund You know, I sooner be up front. So we know that I had a time Absolutely. I as al was saying I think we were looking at seeing what sort of response we had here tonight to see if in fact There was a concern about the elimination or if there's concern. Was this not enough education? Do you need more information? Certainly we have had The opportunity we brought as many people as we thought were needed here tonight to answer any question and No, you got us on one about the outside students. So, um, we we don't have all the answers, but certainly As was mentioned before we are down 300 to and I think if we're going to look at Uh The school resource officers that may be increasing that to Certainly, I think bill you speak on it. You know, we have to set priorities and where we're going and As as you said, we were somewhat Lost last year Well, part of that was our responsibility trying to keep the budgets down But we're starting to see it's time to really address some of these issues And we will have that information on by budget time And it probably would be the same conditions as we have now for our for we have now with We could utilize that that person or those people on the road again if need be I I believe that's an excellent, uh revision to the program we have it maintains their skills on the road and maintains Maintains their skills on the computer and the equipment that the officer uses and if something happens they know exactly What they should have known years and years ago and they can be tied right and I would believe that would be part of it Yes, thank you I thank you, mayor and chief one thing that would be out on there That's the school system pays half of wages over time and half of the benefit program Yes, you're right. So it is a true 5050 split. Yes, and I think lieutenant johnson and then alderman groff And I was remiss in uh mentioning one important thing that was in the back of this pamphlet Jeff could uh, could you use the microphone, please? One important thing is I believe is the last page or two pages in uh The handout that I gave you it's called cops fact sheet That's the community policing office and they've made a commitment to have officers school resource officers in schools This is a grant program that we could get another Potential of 50 percent of the officer's salary Recovered from the federal government and if we'd work in conjunction with the school district Um, we could really make an effort to try and minimize the cost of adding another officer It would have to be an officer in addition To the ones that are already in place and 75 of his responsibilities would have to be in the school Which is is not an issue that would be what we were seeking. So It's I put it in there as food for thought. There are other alternatives funding alternatives There are some time deadlines on this. So if you would tell the chief that we were going to pursue that avenue We certainly Could you know make efforts towards obtaining some of these grants? But it's it's food for thought to try and uh fund these through an alternative method And I'm sorry. I forgot to mention that that was in there. So Thank you lieutenant johnson Alderman groff. Thank you For mentioning that because I was wondering if there was any grant programs that we could tack on to in order to get additional funding because I think basically it's going to come down to how much additional funding you can get in order to get new officers and so forth Um Right now there are four SROs Correct And two of them are paid for completely by the school system Right And the other two are paid for totally by the taxpayers from the city of Sheboygan correct, okay And funding is going to be an issue. Um as well as bringing your t op to um to full Full complement is going to be an issue with that too and um if Full staff means uh that you can have an extra two officers In in the school and an extra officer on the road for the drug program or or whatever You're going to have to make that determination and and tell us where we can get additional funding like these grant programs That may be available or sharing something with Another community their police department or with the sheriff's department or something like that at least The way i'm looking at this Because we need we need financial help wherever we can get sure absolutely Thank you. Alderman groff. Alderman praise Thank you, mr. Chairman and thank you for putting together this presentation that has been very beneficial even to me And i do have some um some background on it and i think a lot of the questions have been answered and benefits of the program have been highlighted We talk about tax money from three political entities here in the city of the county and the school But we have to keep in mind and it's all tax money. It's all tax money from all the people who live here and benefit from our from our services The other thing i think i should note that uh is one of the issues that came up Is that this is an excellent example of shared services? We've got three political entities sharing services providing funds For a program that truly benefits the the future of shabuagan, which is our students Thank you. Alderman praise Alderman manning Thank you Simple personnel question wondering about the officers is their vacation schedule limited to vacation schedule for the school Or are they free on occasion to take off at other times near if so, how is that covered? I used to supervise them. Um, I believe the rules are the same I'd have to double check But I believe their vacations are restricted to when summer or the school vacations are That they are needed in the schools. That's when they take their vacations when the school does and during the summer correct For the most part End of second question This is for our school administrators here tonight I'm a mentor with a strive student and have been for two years and have found it to be quite Positive and he's doing very very well and will graduate from south high school this may or june and my question is The kind of the success picture of strive students who do follow the program and make a big improvement and do well and graduate kind of on time It's I think it's important to highlight the value of the program and that's one way of of underscoring that Thank you all them and many We know for the questions Chief, thank you very much. Thank you. I would I know bruce doesn't speak for himself very freely So I remember story. He told me a while back. He says that he went to a wedding And the woman the bride went up to him and said, thank you very much if it wasn't for your involvement bruce I wouldn't be here today nor would I be being married. So They have some excellent benefits. They are there. They're needed and Jim I think you speak loud loud and Clear we need to look at how we can fund this And we'll come up with some ideas Mayors ram. Thank you chief. Mayors ram one last question You know the statistics of the problems and stuff in schools Can anyone come up with some statistics of the case like you just said? Of the ones who get out of the strive and stuff that really do well in life. Can we pinpoint a few those? I think that would help greatly Right It's really out of central Please If you'd also send a copy to us Yeah And the reason to ask is I did start working with a strive student also as a mentor and off and on It's been kind of a rocky road with the young man, but I think he's doing fairly well just it'd be nice to hear how they go on afterwards People will be surprised at the success rate. Good. I'd like to see that. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Mayor Chief anything else? I have nothing else. I don't know if anyone else has anything but I'm done great Well, first I'd like to first thank you chief Kirk luten Johnson all the members of our school resource officers principles Mr. Calabresa everyone that came here to our vice principals. It's it's nice to see everybody here and and Be here for this presentation. I think a lot of times People forget that the world really has changed a lot since we were in school It's not exactly as friendly and wonderful as it used to be We had our problems then too, but I don't think they were of the same magnitude we see today And that's evident to everyone. I think she bogeyman is well ahead of the curve when it comes to this program If you have communities out there first looking at it now, so I think we've done a great job so far And as everyone knows this is something that I strongly support So I thank you all for being here tonight I guess it's been both an honor and a pleasure to serve as your committee of the whole chairman this past year We've had numerous meetings to provide information and education not only to the council, but to the public And I would encourage the coming years chairperson To continue using the committee of the whole as a tool to provide Information and education to the council as well as to our citizens citizens in sheboygan And I would just thank you all for your support On that, uh, we stand to adjourn sign and die I have a motion to second all in favor Sure, what's aye and adjourned. Thank you