District is undecided on officers

Jordan District leaders are scheduled to meet with local police chiefs next week but have no news on whether the Board of Education will pay more to keep resource officers on their campuses.

The board Tuesday night received some new information on the matter: Police are working in Jordan District high schools full time, and all receive the highest satisfaction ratings possible, according to those schools' reports, though time spent in the schools and ratings from middle and elementary schools working with school resource officers vary.

But the board declined to decide whether to spend the $375,000 set aside in its budget for additional school resource officer costs. Some board members wanted to examine the new information before making a decision; another wanted to pay the sum to keep the officers this school year, then take time to really study the matter.

Superintendent Barry Newbold said the board is not scheduled to talk about the matter again until Oct. 3 and still has not authorized any money to flow. He is to meet with law enforcement leaders Sept. 27, along with Deputy Superintendent Burke Jolley.

"Burke and I are not necessarily looking forward to the meeting on the 27th because we don't have anything definitive to tell them," Newbold said. "It just needs more discussion."

A now dissolved federal grant helped put 30 resource officers in Jordan District middle and high schools and a few elementaries. The district last year spent an additional $120,000 on officers.

But costs ran high without the grant. Last November, the district and Midvale, Sandy, Salt Lake County, South Jordan and West Jordan law enforcement agencies came to a tentative agreement that the district over the next few years would pick up half the officers' costs, for a total $1.5 million, district officials have said.

The board set aside $375,000 in the budget year starting July 1 to start phasing in the additional cost.

But earlier this month, the board decided it wanted to more thoroughly discuss the matter before spending the money. It wanted the number of hours officers spend in schools documented and to look at whether private security might be a better way to go, for example.

Schools report officers' time in schools varies.

Elementaries reported having them a few hours a week for DARE, or drug and violence resistance classes, district officials reported Tuesday. At least one officer was listed as working with five schools at a time.