Judge Rules MPS, City Must Split School Police Costs 50/50

Milwaukee Public Schools administration building. Charles Edward Miller (CC-BY-SA)

Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) and the City of Milwaukee have 10 days to place police officers into schools.

Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge David L. Borowski issued the order Monday. He also ruled the district and city must split the cost evenly.

Feb. 17 was the deadline Borowski previously set for returning school resource officers (SROs) to schools, as was required to have occurred by Jan. 1, 2024 by Wisconsin Act 12, the sales tax legislation.

Frustrated by what he called “continued, ongoing violation of the law,” Borowski gave the school district and the city less than two weeks to comply with the order and evenly split the estimated $1.6 million cost for 25 officers, or face sanctions and contempt of court.

Borowski further ordered that Mayor Cavalier Johnson, or a designee, and the president or vice president of the Milwaukee Public Board of School Directors will need to be present in court in 10 days if his ruling is not obeyed.

“It’s a problem in Milwaukee, in Wisconsin, in society, for anyone to think that they’re above the law, and it certainly seems in this case that there’s at least one entity, if not two… that thinks they’re above the law,” Borowski said. “They’re not.”

The lawsuit, brought by the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) on behalf of MPS parent Charlene Abughrin, asked the court to order MPS to follow the SRO requirements.

Abughrin told media after the hearing that she was “hopeful” SROs would be back in MPS following Borowski’s hearing. “He left them with no excuses left on the table,” she said.

MPS has not had SROs since 2020. The district began removing the officers from schools in 2016. Borowski’s order reinstates the funding arrangement the two entities had the last time officers were in the schools. The judge did say he thought legislators left a “huge gap” in the law by not specifying the financing for the SROs.

“Today’s ruling fairly resolves the most significant issue holding up the deployment of school resource officers in a manner consistent with the most recent offer the city shared with MPS,” said a spokesperson for Johnson. “The city is prepared to finalize a memorandum of understanding with MPS and fully comply with the training requirements set forth in state statutes. We anticipate working with the judge and others to fully and fairly implement the program.”

MPS and the city have publicly feuded in recent months over just how much each entity would pay for the SROs. Attorney Hanna Kolberg, representing MPS, said the 50/50 split only made sense when MPS wanted the officers in the schools. Kolberg also said the school district was ready to implement the SRO program and was simply waiting for the city to provide MPS with officers.

With his order Monday, Borowski ended the ongoing disagreement and said he was “not fully convinced” either party actually wanted to resolve the SRO issue. “I’m not dumb enough to allow this to go on forever,” he said.

Both MPS and the city have said the training requirements for SROs have prevented compliance with Act 12, as MPD does not have officers with the requisite training ready to be deployed in the schools.

“The argument that police officers need all this training; that’s a non-starter with this court,” Borowski said. He added that in his experience the vast majority of MPD officers have enough training to go into MPS schools and begin working as SROs.

Borowski expressed frustration with the city and MPS’s failure to put SROs in the schools, despite the legal deadline for doing so more than a year ago. Both entities, he said were “flaunting the authority of the court and directly violating the law.” Though he was particularly stern with MPS and the Milwaukee Public School board for ignoring the law.

“The gall and temerity of, again, primarily the school board, but to a lesser degree the city, is breathtaking,” he said.