Legislation could halt Granite's police force

State Rep. Kory Holdaway, R-Taylorsville, a teacher in Granite School District, says he has decided to push a bill to abolish that district's controversial police department.

Additional information: The Deseret Morning News examined the operations of the Granite District Police Department two weeks ago in its Jan. 9 Sunday Extra. Read it here:  Jan. 9: School patrol

That comes after a Granite officer was charged this week with aggravated assault for shooting an unarmed burglary suspect in October after a high-speed chase in Salt Lake City — which is outside the suburban school district's boundaries.

The department has been involved in other controversial chases and shootings outside its boundaries. The cost of the department is also controversial. The district says it saves money by preventing more burglaries and vandalism, but critics argue that lawsuits from shootings and other heavy-duty police work could erase savings.

"My bill will prohibit school districts from operating their own police departments," Holdaway said. The Legislature passed a law in 1985 that allowed them to operate such departments.

Granite is currently the only district in the state that has one, spending $1.42 million a year on it and its 16 officers. Jordan School District recently disbanded its police department, saying it saved $600,000 a year of the $800,000 it had been spending. (The rest went for a contractor to monitor alarm systems.)

Martin Bates, assistant for policy and legal services to Granite Superintendent Stephen F. Ronnenkamp, said the school district will have no comment on Holdaway's bill until it sees a copy. "We don't know what to respond to until we've seen it," he said.

Holdaway said he expects to introduce the bill next week and believes that chances are good for passage this session. "It affects only Granite district, so I don't expect a lot of opposition from other areas," he said.

Holdaway, a special education teacher at Taylorsville High School, had been considering pushing such a bill for months over concern that the department drains too much from educational programs.

He said the charging of officer Richard Todd Rasmussen in the shooting this week convinced him to go forward, both over concern about police activities and how such might increase costs amid tight education budgets.

Holdaway said managers of a state insurance pool told him the incident with Rasmussen is making them reconsider their longtime practice of not charging Granite higher premium rates than other districts, despite its operating a police department and risking more lawsuits because of heavy-duty police work.