Port Orange Police officers will take over as School Resource Officers (or SROs) at two city schools, replacing Volusia Sheriff’s Office deputies.
The decision came Tuesday night, June 17, when a majority of the City Council approved the new agreement with the Volusia County School Board.
Mayor Scott Stiltner, Vice Mayor Tracy Grubbs and Councilmembers Jonathan Foley and Shawn Goepfert supported the proposal, which the police department claims can help foster a better relationship between students and officers on a local level.
Councilmember Lance Green, although agreeing with the potential mutual advantage for the police department and schools, opposed the agreement. He raised concerns over the agreement’s fiscal impact, which will add approximately $76,000 to the annual budget.
Here’s where Port Orange police officers will take over as SROs, how much it will cost the city, and why the city partnered with the school district.
Port Orange police officers will serve as SROs at Silver Sands, Creekside middle schools
The idea for the city’s police department to take on SRO duties at two of its middle schools, Creekside and Silver Sands, came about in 2024.
According to the city, the Volusia Sheriff’s Office approached the city’s police department to suggest the switch at the two middle schools.
“The city was the last Volusia County municipality not providing SRO services within (its) jurisdiction,” according to a city staff agenda report. “However, as (Port Orange Police Department) staffing levels stabilized, the department agreed to begin providing SROs at both Silver Sands and Creekside middle schools beginning with the 2025-26 school year.”
The agreement is valid for the next five years, but with yearly renewals dependent on the city’s and school district’s approval.
It also requires the school district to reimburse the city “at a rate of 50% for all services provided.” One SRO’s base annual pay would be around $76,000. With the allocation of two SROs for half the amount, the city will spend approximately $76,000 on both SROs annually.
Councilman Green raised fiscal concerns
With these numbers presented to the City Council, Green mentioned how the agreement could financially affect the city’s budget and the department’s operation.
“To do this, it’s going to cost us $76,150 per year, plus the expenses of an officer, which is going to be two cars, uniforms, etc.,” Green said. “I think this is another situation where this is a school board issue.”
With budget season approaching, “we’re literally pinching pennies on this board.”
The councilman also expressed concerns over how the department’s rotation would be impacted.
“I think this is something the school board should be doing, and I don’t see as how we have these additional funds to fund pulling two officers away from the police department to put them on a school campus,” Green said.
Mayor: ‘This is the right way to do it’
Manuel Marino, Port Orange’s police chief, said the idea of local officers taking on these roles can help build a relationship between students and Port Orange police.
“You want to be able to have interactions with these students from the time they are little,” Marino said at the meeting. “The idea is that they have a Port Orange officer as their SRO that they feel comfortable with, and by the time they get to high school, they will have had a Port Orange officer in their school for all their teenage years. By the time they reach adulthood, they are comfortable with the police department.”
According to the city, the program can also help “deter crime on or about school premises by the presence of a law enforcement officer,” as well as “help to enforce local, state and federal laws, and to have an SRO available for presentations to the students, faculty, and parents concerning law enforcement and various subjects related to the law.”
Stiltner argued that “this is really the way it should have been done in the first place.”
“That’s not a knock on the sheriff’s office, but internally, in our city, these are our residents, our residents’ kids,” the mayor said. “So you’re basically bringing in an outside agency to come in and serve in a function that is having that day-to-day contact, and we as a municipal police department are losing a lot of opportunities to gain that mentorship, familiarity.”
He added that whenever police is needed at one of the city’s schools, it is local police who respond to the scene first.
“And we need to have that familiarity, that sharing of intelligence and information,” Stiltner said. “This is the right way to do it.”
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Port Orange Police to take over SRO services at Creekside, Silver Sands middle schools
Reporting by Brenno Carillo, Daytona Beach News-Journal / The Daytona Beach News-Journal
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