Funding from schools to cops

I don’t often pull in WLS but the other day I was able to for a short while.

I think I heard them state critically that the Chicago Public Schools used to pay about $7 million to the police for safety (apparently) purposes.

That has or will increase to $70 million…I assume that is a one year increase or over a short enough period of time to stand out.

Correct and if so what’s that all about???

Well I have a friend who is permanently assigned (along with a partner) to a CPS high school in my neighborhood. They spend their entire shift there and even have an office in the building. The weird part of it is that the school has their own security staff that is responsible for all security issues in the school. The CPD is only there to process arrests and do things that they’d normally do if they were called by the school. It’s more of a proximity issue than anything. Instead of sending a squad over there several times a day, they have officers on site who familiarize themselves with the building, staff, etc. It’s a far cry from “Officer Friendly” but here we are.

Makes sense…but the increase???

Can’t say for sure, but a lot of those programs used to be paid for by various grants and Community Oriented Police Services (COPS) programs. It may be that funding has been cut back, or that the grants don’t run through the police departments anymore, but run through the schools.