11/16/06,School Resource Officers - a bargaining chip for the Mayor's budget?

School Resource Officers - a bargaining chip for the Mayor's budget?
At the City Council Public Hearing tonight on the Mayor's proposed budget several citizens brought up concerns as to why the School Resource Officers (SRO) were unfunded and now absent from the schools.
Councilmember John Marchione is the Council Finance Chair. He responded to these citizen complaints directly by stating the Council did indeed approve funds for the SRO staff. John stated the Administration (Mayor & Police Chief) never implemented the SRO program even though adequate funds had been approved.
This put the Mayor on the spot as she tried to explain why SRO service were not implemented by her administration. The Mayor was visibly nervous and rambled on for minutes. The Mayor finally concluded she would implement the SRO program IF she got funding from Council for "so many" (20?) police officers. It was clear, the Mayor is using our valued SRO program as a bargaining chip for her budget.
A second claim given by the Mayor for not implementing SRO was her Police Chief felt cyber-crime enforcement was more critical and necessary than SRO. It is most unfortunate the Administration's SRO program is being tossed around like a two-bit poker chip. Federal and State funding requirements also compete for SRO dollars, according to councilmember John Resha.
One citizen asked why our budget couldn't afford something as small as SRO's when we could afford to build this $40M City Hall. Councilmember Jim Robinson agreed the City Hall expense was enormous for so little pay-back. He quoted a government document that the city won't have a positive return in the lease vs. buy case for almost 30 years! $20M savings are projected 30-43 years from now....not our time! After inflation $20M won't be worth a pot to p in. (say I) considering what we lose in cash flow and quality of life services. In addition, the building will be obsolete in probably less than 30 years or prior to payback.
Someone joked the City Hall scenario is like someone driving a Town Car to the welfare office.
On a side note: Last week at a budget meeting the city Finance Director claimed the new City Hall doesn't have enough storage space to archive their city records! Therefore, she was asking for additional funds to add to records management funding of two years ago. Can you believe it?! All the Mayor & Director have to do is look over their heads into the vaulted ceilings to see see we have plenty of storage space. Unfortunately the grandiose design of the building put style over function. Thus, our pocketbooks, SRO funding, city web improvements, and other vital services we need today are unmet. City Hall is draining our quality of life.
[this blog was copied to the Mayor]
Tags: mayor, staff, marchione, neighborhoods, safety, schools, budget, robinson Edit Tags
Thursday November 16, 2006