District may help purchase new police cars
Aug. 25—St. Joseph School District school resource officers drive some of the oldest, most worn-down police vehicles available, and a plan to replace them is in the works.
Chief Paul Luster of the St. Joseph Police Department came to the St. Joseph Board of Education's finance committee meeting on Friday to discuss the state of the patrol cars assigned to the school resource officers. Since his appointment as chief in May, Luster said, it's become clear that the sooner new vehicles are purchased, the better. He has been in conversation with Robert Sigrist and Shannon Nolte, among other district leaders, about how the school resource officer contract can be updated to help cover this cost.
"That vehicle is — for any police officer, including the SRO — that's an important tool for them to be able to do their job," Luster said. "And so, when it comes to the safety of our schools, there's going to be times where those officers have to travel from school to school. Perhaps if there's an emergency, if they're needed at another school, it's important that they have reliable transportation to do that."
The cost of replacement and how much of the cost the district might pay is to be determined. New 2023 Ford Police Interceptor Utility vehicles retail at between $32,000 and $53,000 each, according to the Kelley Blue Book vehicle information system. There are six members of the force assigned to school resource officer duty, plus a supervisor.
"We've always had a piece in there that talked about funding for equipment," said Sigrist, assistant superintendent of business and operations, in comments to the finance committee. "That's not new in the contract. We've always had that in there. But the city has really in all honesty not utilized that from us very often. We are being a little more intentional about that ... I don't know if you've seen any of the cars that the SROs have, but I would put my old (1998 Honda) CR-V up against them, because they have lived their usefulness."
Whitney Lanning, board member and finance committee chairwoman, said on Saturday that the "equipment and training" section of the current school resource officer contract with the police department limits expenses to $50,000 per year (part of about $311,000 in annual budgeted costs).
Lanning said that since other needs must be covered by this amount, such as professional development conferences or upgrades to the devices each officer uses, it's unlikely the $50,000 will be used to purchase a car — per the Kelley Blue Book, the entire line item would potentially not be enough.
If the police department does use the money toward a car, it will be expected to differentiate it from the rest of the fleet.
"Our thought was, this would help communicate the fact we have SROs at the schools, as a sort of preventative measure," Lanning said in a social media statement.
Luster said the window for purchasing new police vehicles will not open until well into the 2024 calendar year; they would be delivered some time after that. Vehicles could enter service in time for the 2024-25 school year.
Cost depends on factory-installed features, not accounting for specializations that may be needed. As far as differentiation of the car is concerned, Luster intends to explore installing a graphics covering on the new vehicles, which would clearly associate them with their mission of protecting schools. Against the purchase price, Luster estimated the graphics cost would be minimal.
Marcus Clem can be reached at marcus.clem@newspressnow.com. Follow him on Twitter: @NPNowClem
