District 200 takes another look at police liaison program

School board members in Wheaton Warrenville Unit District 200 say they value having police liaison officers in their high schools.

But some are questioning the roughly $285,000 cost of running the program at Wheaton North and Wheaton Warrenville South. Right now, one police officer is assigned to each building.

"It seems to me to be an extremely high cost for two police officers to be on duty in our schools," board member Ken Knicker said.

As a result, the school board on Wednesday postponed a vote to extend an intergovernmental agreement with Wheaton for the liaison officers.

Knicker said he's not opposed to having officers in the schools, an arrangement that dates to 1996.

"They've really played a significant role when we have needed them in our high schools at certain crisis times," he said.

Still, Knicker said he wants to take another look at the intergovernmental agreement, which requires the district to pay 75 percent of the total cost.

If the agreement is approved, District 200's cost for the coming school year would be nearly $214,000. Knicker said that amount of money could pay the salaries of about four teachers.

"I don't know whether we are paying for something the city ought to be helping us more with," he said, adding the district has taken other steps to improve security at the high schools, like installing surveillance cameras.

Whether the city could afford to pay more than 25 percent of the police liaison program's cost remains to be seen. In order to avoid a $1.5 million budget shortfall, city officials increased the local taxes on electricity and natural gas and, in January, eliminated 17 staff positions.

For each liaison officer, the base salary is roughly $81,000 and benefits cost about $61,000. The benefits total includes insurance, uniform expenses and pay for the officers to work overtime at athletic events.

Despite the questions about the program's costs, Superintendent Brian Harris said he anticipates the school board will renew the intergovernmental agreement for the coming school year.

Harris said the board might direct him to meet with city officials to see if the agreement could be revised next year to reduce some of the district's costs.

"This agreement has been in place for almost 15 years," Harris said. "So it may be time to take another look at it."