County board OKs cops for Portage schools

The Porter County Board of Commissioners recently approved an agreement with the sheriff’s department that provides two full-time deputies for the Portage Township schools, for which the county will be reimbursed.

Sheriff’s deputies began working at Portage High School and Willowcreek and Fegley middle schools in early September as school resource officers after city officers were pulled as a result of a tiff between Portage Police Chief Troy Williams and Amanda Alaniz, superintendent of the Portage schools.

“We didn’t really want to take over Portage. They tried to work it out,” Sheriff David Reynolds told commissioners on Nov. 13, adding he did not get involved in the matter.

The sheriff’s department has been providing deputies in a part-time capacity to serve as school resource officers to a growing number of schools in the county, Reynolds said. In those instances, Reynolds has said deputies work on their own time and are paid by the school corpo- rations at a rate of $30 an hour.

Under the agreement between commissioners, the sheriff’s department and the Portage schools, the school corporation will pay the salary and benefits of two fulltime officers. The agreement is for four years; Reynolds said the officers make just under $60,000 a year each, and the school corporation will pay for their benefits as well.

Even with reimbursement from the school corporation, the administrative burden of the arrangement will fall on the sheriff’s department, said Commissioner Jim Biggs, RNorth.

“This should never have happened,” he said. “This could have and should have been worked out by the school administration and the police department.”

While the optics appear that the county is helping the city of Portage, said Commissioners President Jeff Good, many of the students in the Portage Township schools are from unincorporated South Haven.