The Fond du Lac School District and city of Fond du Lac are continuing negotiations over the funding of school resource officers, and the possibility of cutting a position if the city doesn’t pick up the cost during the summer. Currently the school district splits the cost 50-50 with the city of Fond du lac for five school resource officers…two in the high school and one in each of the three middle schools. School Board president Linda Uselmann says the School District has concerns about picking up the cost for the officers during the summer when school is not in session. “We’re looking to trim the SRO cost for the summer for the district and the city came back with the assertion that their costs were fixed for the program. They couldn’t go beyond what they were spending,” Uselmann told WFDL news. So they (city) returned with a proposal to cut one SRO officer and we had some discussions about how the four remaining officers would be distributed.” She says under the proposal the high school would still have two SROs . One would also share duties at a middle school, although she says nothing is set in stone at this point. All of the SROs already share duties at the elementary school level. Uselmann says the SROs do a few school-related things during the summer. “For instance if there’s juvenile issues in the summer they step in, they pop into the summer school programs. Its not full-time though like it would be during the school year,” Uselmann said. “They (officers) are also encouraged to take their vacations during the school break.” Discussions have been ongoing for about two years and Uselmann says the school district will do what is needed to make it work for the needs of the district.
