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If Buena Vista wants to continue employing school resource officers in future years, the city is going to have to pick up the tab for the costs.
Heretofore, the state has been funding these positions with grants that are awarded on four-year cycles. Buena Vista currently has an SRO in each of its four schools. Funding grants for two of the officers will expire at the end of the current school year, or next June 30. Grants for the other two officers will expire at the end of the following two school years, in 2025 and 2026.
Chief of Police Dr. Wayne Handley and Superintendent of Schools Dr. Tony Francis informed City Council last week that Gov. Glenn Youngkin recently announced that state funding for the SROs would end with the conclusion of current four-year grant cycles. After that, localities will be responsible for paying the full costs for their own SROs.
Handley and Francis each expressed support for continuing to have SROs in each of the schools in future years. “We just wanted to get this on your radar [in advance of budget planning sessions],” said Handley. “We can have more indepth conversations … what the costs would be … state our intent of keep police officers at each of the four schools.”
SROs not only enhance security at the schools, Handley pointed out. He emphasized that their interactions with students, what he termed “community engagement,” also serves an important function. As for helping with security, Francis remarked, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Having SROs in the schools helps prevent certain difficult situations from “escalating.”
Mayor Tyson Cooper observed that the SROs “have become positive role models for students. They’re beloved.” Council member Michelle Poluikis, who works in the schools, agreed, “Students just love them.” Their presence in the schools, she said, “is very critical for the mental health [well being] of students.”
In addition to the four SROs, who are fully certified uniformed officers overseen by the Buena Vista Police Department, there are two school security officers in the schools – one at Parry Mc-Cluer High School and one at Enderly Heights Elementary School. These two positions are funded by a separate grant program.
Local costs for the SROs, if the city were to have to fund them, would be about $80,000 each, including pay and benefits, according to Tyree. He said Council will likely begin looking at the budget implications after the first of the year. City staff will be internally reviewing the issue between now and then.
