An ever-tightening budget at Oak Park Village Hall has the village looking to transfer the costs of funding school resource officers and crossing guards over to the local elementary and high school districts.
But that prospect worries District 97, which has experienced its own financial crunch for nearly a decade, long before the economy spiraled downward last year. The village government has long funded Dist. 97’s 27 crossing guards and in-school resource officers. Oak Park and River Forest High School has one school resource officer.
Dist. 97 Supt. Constance Collins discussed the possible shift with the Oak Park elementary school board at its meeting last week. The district estimates that it will cost $310,000 to cover salary and benefits for the crossing guards and one supervisor, and $82,000 for the two resources officers assigned to the middle schools. Up until the current school year, each middle school had one full-time resource officer. There is now one officer who splits time between Percy Julian and Gwendolyn Brooks schools.
Another snag in the village’s plan is that its fiscal year starts in January, and the two school districts next budget cycle starts in July 2010. The village’s crossing guards are also unionized, a rarity in the state, Collins noted. The district isn’t eager to add another union to its ranks, she said.
Collins said talks are ongoing between the three jurisdictions, but that her district can’t absorb such costs by January. She maintained that the district would like to share the costs with the village.
“We know that we have to have crossing guards and we have sort of talked at the table about what some possibilities are,” Collins said.
On Monday, Village Manager Tom Barwin told Wednesday Journal that the village’s long arrangement with the school districts was not typical, and that other school districts either partially, or fully, fund crossing guards and a police presence in schools.
The village government, Barwin said, spends nearly $600,000 providing SROs and crossing guards to the school districts. River Forest has 11 crossing guards, paid for by its police department.
“When the village was flush, we were able to absorb those costs, but the revenues are not there, and we don’t have our rainy-day fund to live on,” Barwin said.
He added that the village is reviewing everything as it tries to trim costs. Barwin said there are a variety of models Oak Park could follow concerning crossing guards; for instance, having parents volunteer, or even having students themselves serving as crossing guards. The latter suggestion wasn’t received enthusiastically by Dist. 97 Board of Education members.
President Peter Traczyk, also a Dist. 97 parent, said he did not want to see any children serving as crossing guards, noting such concerns as child predators possibly targeting areas around the schools. Several board members also stressed that maintaining safety along Oak Park streets, even near the schools, was the responsibility of the village. Collins also can’t envision children patrolling the streets.
“In the days when it was sort of the ‘Beaver Cleaver’ days when things were safer and kids could do those types of things – that was different than now. I don’t think that’s something we would like to entertain,” Collins said.
Barwin, though, sees that differently. He said parents are the eyes and ears of the schools and could serve as volunteers. He also mentioned having retirees out there before and after school, reiterating, again, that other municipalities don’t fund crossing guards.
“The village has been extremely generous for a number of years with our sister governments, and that has been appreciated by them, but our situation has been atypical, and we’re trying to move to something that’s more typical in other governments,” Barwin said.
Collins acknowledged that most other school districts in the state pay for its own crossing guards, but she cautioned against having to rely on volunteers.
“We know that with crossing guards that we have to have someone there everyday. To depend on volunteers, and even with the crossing guards that are part of the union, there is no guarantee that they’re there, so then the police department has someone cover when they are absent. So this is a concern,” she said.
Collins and Barwin agree that no decision will be made by January and that village will continue funding the crossing guards and SROs through next June.