WAUSAU, WI (WSAU) — The city of Wausau has renewed the continued agreement between the Wausau School District and the Wausau Police Department to have resource officers in schools.
A unanimous vote from both the finance committee and the whole city council approved the contribution agreement with the school district for school resource officer services. With this agreement, nothing changes for the police department or the school district. As Chief of Police Ben Bliven describes, “This agreement is essentially putting into writing what we’ve done and what our practice has been for the last couple of decades.”
The terms of the agreement include that the police department will supply the services of resource officers and that the school district will pay for part of that service. The service required for the officers includes extra training. Chief Bliven says, “Our SRO’s receive specialized training in how to handle and deal with issues that revolve around schools and children and juveniles.”
Bliven also explains what the department is able to do while in the schools under this agreement. “We’re able to work with school administrators, parents and children to hopefully come to the best resolution in a lot of these cases. We don’t want to criminalize kids as best we can. And the more we have a relationship with children and parents, we’re able to mitigate some long-term issues in the short term.”
Chief Bliven mentions the partnership with the school district is an opportunity for the police department. The city council also unanimously voted to approve the vacating and discontinuing of Franklin Street and North 2nd Street for the YMCA expansion project. An amendment was added to the resolution and ordinance to link the 900 block of 2nd Street to Mcindoe Street so Cloverbelt Credit Union can keep their Mcindoe address.