03-24-2013, 08:09 PM
Creek expects to start school program with retired officers
March 1, 2013|Alyssa Cutter, acutter@tribune.com
Coconut Creek elementary schools will most likely have new School Resource Officers (SROs) to look forward to at the start of the next school year this fall. :cry:
Commissioners gave their consent for the police department to move ahead with the hiring of three new, previously retired officers. The city will be testing a new program of hiring retired officers for the seasonal job of keeping watch over the area's elementary schools – Coconut Creek Elementary, Tradewinds Elementary and Winston Park Elementary.
"[If] I hire a police officer who is young, energetic and interviews well, you still have to see him function in the street :lol: ," Police Chief Michael Mann said. "Sometimes they make probation, sometimes they don't because you just can't know everything about that person. These retired officers have a proven track record. We would never hire someone from another city who was a problem child :lol: . We can look at their backgrounds; we can see and talk to their supervisors :lol: . That's the beauty of this program: We're hiring the most experienced, and they are not doddering old men."
The Broward County School Board gives cities $46,252 per SRO to help compensate, but Coconut Creek wants to take that amount and use it to fund the full salary of the seasonal officers, then hire four new officers to put on the road to beef up numbers in the city.
"We're being supplemented for every officer that we have in a school right now," Mann said.
Right now, the city has 91 sworn officers for a population of roughly 54,000, which puts the officer-to-resident ratio at 1.7 officers for every 1,000 people, according to the police department. This figure is below the Broward County average of 2.2 officers per 1,000 people. :oops:
Cabrera acknowledged that a longer stay in a school was a luxury, but that nothing about the city's current SRO program would change, except the faces.
Mann promised to have an officer in the schools no matter what, even if they couldn't find someone retired right away.
"I will never put anybody that I don't feel is qualified :oops: or up to the level of our police officers in the schools :roll: ," Mann said . "If we have 50 candidates and I can only find two that I think fit the bill, then we'll replace the two and keep one full-time officer in the school :roll: . It's just the way it's got to be. I'm committed to doing this the right way :roll: :snicker: ."
March 1, 2013|Alyssa Cutter, acutter@tribune.com
Coconut Creek elementary schools will most likely have new School Resource Officers (SROs) to look forward to at the start of the next school year this fall. :cry:
Commissioners gave their consent for the police department to move ahead with the hiring of three new, previously retired officers. The city will be testing a new program of hiring retired officers for the seasonal job of keeping watch over the area's elementary schools – Coconut Creek Elementary, Tradewinds Elementary and Winston Park Elementary.
"[If] I hire a police officer who is young, energetic and interviews well, you still have to see him function in the street :lol: ," Police Chief Michael Mann said. "Sometimes they make probation, sometimes they don't because you just can't know everything about that person. These retired officers have a proven track record. We would never hire someone from another city who was a problem child :lol: . We can look at their backgrounds; we can see and talk to their supervisors :lol: . That's the beauty of this program: We're hiring the most experienced, and they are not doddering old men."
The Broward County School Board gives cities $46,252 per SRO to help compensate, but Coconut Creek wants to take that amount and use it to fund the full salary of the seasonal officers, then hire four new officers to put on the road to beef up numbers in the city.
"We're being supplemented for every officer that we have in a school right now," Mann said.
Right now, the city has 91 sworn officers for a population of roughly 54,000, which puts the officer-to-resident ratio at 1.7 officers for every 1,000 people, according to the police department. This figure is below the Broward County average of 2.2 officers per 1,000 people. :oops:
Cabrera acknowledged that a longer stay in a school was a luxury, but that nothing about the city's current SRO program would change, except the faces.
Mann promised to have an officer in the schools no matter what, even if they couldn't find someone retired right away.
"I will never put anybody that I don't feel is qualified :oops: or up to the level of our police officers in the schools :roll: ," Mann said . "If we have 50 candidates and I can only find two that I think fit the bill, then we'll replace the two and keep one full-time officer in the school :roll: . It's just the way it's got to be. I'm committed to doing this the right way :roll: :snicker: ."