Zoeller backs bill to increase police officers in schools

School resource officers are normally full-time police officers who work at schools to provide security, evaluate school safety and help discipline and advise students.

However, many Indiana schools cannot afford them. As a result, Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller said Thursday he would back Senate Bill 270, which was filed by state Sen. Pete Miller, R-Avon, and recommends school corporations hire school resource officers and provides them with state funding.

This bill would also help create a job standard for resource officers that includes implementing schools’ safety procedures, acting as messengers to local law enforcement and educating students about law enforcement.

“In light of the recent tragic events in Connecticut, we know school safety is a subject parents and the public are very concerned about,” Zoeller said in a press release. “In a needs assessment researching school safety last fall, educators and law enforcement leaders indicated they would like to make school resource officers available in more schools.”

The legislation was not originally intended to come about subsequently after the Dec. 14 Newtown, Conn., shooting. However, Zoeller and Miller said the bill would be the state’s first formal proposal to address increased safety efforts in schools since the incident, according to a press release.

The bill would require officers to be either school corporation employees or law enforcement officers with a police agency who work on contract for the school. They must also complete training and receive certification.

Between a quarter and a third of Indiana school corporations employ resource officers, according to the release. The bill would provide $10 million in grants to schools both with and without resource officers. Schools can receive up to $50,000 a year for two years. Combined, school corporations and local law enforcement must pay 50 percent of the total cost to employ the officers.

“The grant funding would be intended as seed money to expand the use of resource officers around the state on an interim basis with the idea that, after two years, the positions could either be funded locally or through other sources as the Legislative designates,” Miller said in a press release.

— Sydney Murray