Off-duty officers will be hired by TPS for rest of year
4/30/2009Toledo Public Schools Superintendent John Foley has developed a plan to keep law enforcement officers in the schools for the rest of the school year despite the city's plans to lay off 150 officers.
Mr. Foley said the district would pay off-duty officers an hourly rate to be in the schools. The officers will come from a variety of departments, including from Toledo, the University of Toledo, and the Lucas County Sheriff's Office.
These "project officers" will be paid $22 an hour.
The school district has already paid half of the $763,832 cost for the 12 officers' compensation over nine months. Mr. Foley expects the pay for the replacement project officers to equal the other 50 percent of that money.
The officers' presence in schools is credited for not only stopping issues, but preventing them as well.
The planned police layoffs, which would include the school resource officers, would help the city deal with a budget deficit projected at $20.7 million.
A tentative agreement on a new contract between the city and the Toledo Police Patrolman's Association was rejected Thursday by Mayor Carty Finkbeiner because the financial concessions were not enough.