Chula Vista Police Officer’s Association ask Parents, Teachers for Help

CVPOA sends letter to PTAs asking for Support for School Resource Officers Program, which faces Chopping Block along with 33 Officers, 44 Sworn Positions

The Chula Vista Police Officer’s Association (CVPOA) is taking their concerns to the parents and teachers in Chula Vista schools, specifically the PTAs, in the form of a letter and is asking for their support and assistance.

In a letter being provided to PTAs over the next two weeks, the CVPOA informs parents and teachers who they serve of the potential elimination of the School Resource Officers Program, which along with 33 officers and 44 positions faces the chopping block because of the City of Chula Vista’s projected budget shortfall.

The School Resource Officers Program serves 90 public and private schools in Chula Vista from which more than 17,000 emergency calls for service and proactive police stops are generated each year. Each day, calls from schools number 46 per day. Reactive service calls meaning calls requesting police presence from schools number 2,000 annually.

If the School Resource Officers Program is cut, there will no longer be any officers assigned to secure, protect or serve public and private school facilities. If there were ever an emergency at a school requiring a police response, there would no longer be an officer dedicated to prevent and respond to that emergency.

With no more School Resource Officers, the general patrol staff would instead need to respond to all of the calls. The officers will no longer be in the schools and will need to respond from some distance away.

Although the police department already has challenges getting to calls quickly enough to meet standards, the elimination of the School Resource Officer program will further slow officers’ ability to respond to calls for service. This will inevitably result in longer response times to calls throughout the city.

A portion of the letter reads as follows:

“This matter is of an urgent nature and we are asking for your help! The City of Chula Vista is poised to eliminate the School Resource Officers (SRO) from the campuses of both the Sweetwater Union High School District (SUHSD) and the Chula Vista Elementary School District (CVESD). The safety of our students is a crucial component to maintain a successful learning environment, yet the City Manager plans to discontinue the SRO program entirely – taking officers off our campuses and leaving the schools without any dedicated law enforcement resources.

Last year, the School Resource Officers responded to more than 2,000 calls for service from local schools. With the elimination of the SRO program there will not be officers dedicated to handle these calls. Instead calls from schools will be put “in line” with the thousands of other calls received from all over the city and an officer will be dispatched whenever they become available. The result will be longer response times for local schools.

The SRO program is scheduled to be eliminated on January 7th, 2011.”

The Chula Vista Police Department also will be forced to reduce investigations, decrease DUI enforcement and decrease patrols in high-crime areas by 50 percent, in addition to the elimination of the School Resource Program if the 33 officers and 44 sworn positions are cut.

In the City of Chula Vista, current staffing equates to 0.97 officers per capita, the lowest in San Diego County. The Chula Vista Police Department is also the least funded when compared to other local governments. The City of Chula Vista spends fewer dollars per resident than every other city in the area. In fact, the next lowest city spends 24 percent more and Chula Vista’s closest neighbor, National City, spends 70 percent more on law enforcement services.

City Manager Jim Sandoval insists the cuts and layoffs are necessary to balance the projected $12.5 million budget shortfall citywide for the 2011-2012 fiscal year.

The CVPOA has outlined numerous ways residents can voice their concern to avoid the current proposed layoffs, all of which can be found on the CVPOA Web site, www.cvpoa.org.

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Posted by Eastlaketimes on Dec 8 2010. Filed under Business News in Chula Vista, Community of Eastlake, Eastlake Government, Eastlake News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry