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5/25/2022
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Rep. O’Brien urges passage of bill that extends school resource officer reimbursement program
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STATE HOUSE – Rep. William W. O’Brien (D-Dist. 54, North Providence) is urging the passage of legislation (2022-H 7485) he introduced that would extend the reimbursement to school districts or municipalities for newly hired school resource officers.
The bill has been referred to the House Finance Committee.
“The past few days have shown us the importance of having a resource officer at every school in the state. I am happy that the Town of North Providence took advantage of this program by hiring two new resource officers, and it is reassuring to know that the additional resource officers will continue to protect our children and educators at school. But now is not the time to allow this reimbursement program to expire and the state should continue to be a partner in protecting our schools and children,” said Representative O’Brien.
The FY 2019 budget item in Article 9 established a voluntary three-year pilot program to fund school resource officers at half the costs associated with employing new officers at public middle and high schools. The state reimburses 50 percent of the cost, while municipalities share the rest of the cost. Representative O’Brien’s bill would eliminate the sunset on the program.
In order to qualify for reimbursement, the new school resource officer must have been hired after June 30, 2021 and the officer must not be replacing a school resource officer who has since retired.
“The safety and security of our students, staff, and visitors in our schools is paramount and school resource officers are the best equipped and trained to deal with security situations. If a monster with a gun shows up at one of our schools, the best and only line of defense is an armed school resource officer. This is an important program that will keep our schools safer, it’s as simple as that,” said Representative O’Brien.
He is also urging passage of his bill (2022-H 7459) mandating the arming of campus police officers at the state’s public colleges. Currently, campus police officers are not armed at Rhode Island College (RIC) and the Community College of Rhode Island (CCRI). Representative O’Brien notes that RIC is the only state college in the country without armed campus police officers.
“All of these campus police officers are retired police officers and in order to properly protect and secure the campus amid repeated mass shooting incidents, these campus police officers should be armed. If the worst were to happen, these campus officers already possess the training to deal with the threat, they just need the tools to properly do their job. It’s time RIC stops being an outlier so that our students, faculty and staff are protected,” concluded Representative O’Brien.
For more information, contact:
Andrew Caruolo, Publicist
State House Room 20
Providence, RI 02903
(401)222-6124
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