At a brief meeting Monday evening, the Normal Town Council approved a new memorandum of understanding about security at Unit 5 schools, and a routine intergovernmental agreement with Illinois State University concerning reimbursement for fire protection services.
The memorandum of understanding with Unit 5 concerns student resource officers [SROs] placed in local schools by the Normal Police Department. In addition to providing security, SROs provide educational programs.
The town says it places SROs in schools “in an effort to build positive, long-lasting relationships, provide a safe school environment, plan for and respond to emergencies, educate students on safety and other topics, and reduce incidents of violence, drug use, and other criminal offenses.”
The new memorandum specifies that Unit 5 will reimburse the town for 65% of the SROs’ compensation packages. It also specifies the roles of the SROs in the schools, the chain of command, and outlines steps for performance evaluations and conflict resolution.
The memorandum states that Unit 5 will remain in control of all student discipline while “NPD will exercise control over law enforcement activities that take place within the schools.”
The town says “legislative changes over the years, coupled with the ever-evolving K-12 educational experience, prompted Unit 5 and NPD to revisit the SRO program to more discretely codify each entity’s obligations to continue to provide appropriate police presence within Unit 5’s schools.”
“The Unit 5 security is continuing to have resource offices in the schools, middle schools and high schools, located in the Normal town limits,” council member Karyn Smith told WGLT. “So Chiddix, and Kingsley, and Normal West, and… Normal Community.”
ISU agreement
The council also approved a routine intergovernmental agreement with ISU pertaining to fire protection and emergency medical services. As a result, the town’s General Fund will receive $663,620 from the university in return for these services.
The agreement with ISU says “the State of Illinois recognizes the impact of state-owned tax-exempt property on the community. As a result, the board of trustees of the university is willing to expend funds from their budget to support the cost of providing fire suppression services to the campus.”
“That’s an agreement about the town providing the fire service to the campus, and it follows guidelines set at the state level,” Smith said after the meeting.
“So there’s nothing that we really modify or anything, we’re just approving a memorandum of understanding that’s basically boiler-plated by a state that does this for all the communities that are in this situation.”
