Mayor Wants MPS To Pay For Police in Schools

Mayor Cavalier Johnson (right) and Police Chief Jeffrey Norman. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.

Police, schools, politics.

Milwaukee Public Schools ended its school resource officer (SRO) contract with the Milwaukee Police Department in June 2020 amidst a nationwide debate on policing following the killing of George Floyd.

But Act 12, which overhauled local government funding, requires MPS to bring 25 of the officers back. The deadline was January 2024, yet the district still does not have a formal plan to do so.

MPS says it’s waiting for the city to provide the officers. Mayor Cavalier Johnson says it’s up to MPS to fund the majority of the cost.

“Usually when you go to a restaurant and order a meal, the chef doesn’t prepare your meal and then pay the bill,” said Johnson during a crime stats briefing Tuesday. “That’s essentially what we’re being asked to do and I think that’s wrong for taxpayers of the city.”

The mayor said the city continues to work with MPS on the matter and wants to get the matter resolved “as soon as possible.”

“I liked what we had done before the district decided to sever the relationship with the police department, where MPS paid for, I believe, 5/6 of the costs when those officers were in schools and then the city picked up the last 1/6 when summer was in and those officers weren’t needed in schools,” said Johnson. “I’ve gone on record that I think the school district should not have severed the relationship in the first place.”

Police Chief Jeffrey Norman said his department continues to be engaged in the discussion. “Once we are able to get to a point where all parties agree about what is the ‘rules of engagement’ so to speak, we will see the program back again,” said Norman. “We haven’t left MPS with regard to the work we are doing with them. There are still officers in schools, they still respond, it just is not considered an SRO.”

MPS budgeted approximately $1 million in the 2019-2020 school for school resource officers. A separate Truancy Abatement Burglary Suppression state statute requires MPS to have four officers in its schools. That policy, which costs approximately $400,000 annually, was not canceled in 2020.

Act 12 provided the city with a 2% sales tax and Milwaukee County with an additional 0.4% sales tax, but MPS did not directly receive increased funding as part of the bipartisan law. It was, however, required by the law to reinstate the SRO program. Buried in Act 12, which triggered the soft closure of the city’s pension system used by MPS administrative employees, is a provision that the city use some of its sales tax proceeds to pay for the growth of MPS’ underfunded employee pensions triggered by a reduction in the assumed rate of return. A report from the City of Milwaukee Employes Retirement System says that provision provides MPS with $4.7 million in 2025.

Legislators have raised the specter of penalties for MPS failing to comply. “It’s going to be hard to give increases for school districts like Milwaukee if they don’t follow the law,” Assembly Speaker Robin Vos told CBS 58 in December. “This was a pretty clear-cut decision that was made that was part of the shared revenue deal.”

“I don’t want more money to be withheld from Milwaukee Public Schools,” said Johnson on UpFront Sunday. But he acknowledged that the district may face consequences from the Legislature.

The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty is already suing the district for failing to comply with Act 12.

In September, MPS released a statement saying it had reached a memorandum of understanding with MPD. But City Attorney Evan Goyke, who represents both sides through a quirk in state law, said no such agreement was reached.

How effective is it to station officers in schools? Results have been mixed, reports Terry Falk.

UPDATE: The quote about the chef has been updated to address a mistyped word. Details of how MPS benefits from the city sales tax have been added.

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