City of Gillett may take on SRO program

The City of Gillett is considering a six-month trial of a school resource officer (SRO) program using a city police officer in cooperation with the school district and the Oconto County Sheriff’s Department.

Sheriff Todd Skarban and Superintendent Nathan Hanson appeared at the Nov. 7 meeting of the Gillett City Council to talk about a proposal they worked out with Gillett Mayor Jon Blaskowski.

The school board included $80,000 in its 2024-25 budget to provide an officer who would work with students in Gillett schools similar to the program in Suring, where Deputy Jess Keplinger serves as the SRO.

“The school is paying 75% of the wage and we’re paying 25%, and it’s a win all the way around,” Skarban said. “I get him in the summer months for three months, and he works for me, and then from September until June essentially the school gets him as a school resource officer.”

Keplinger has helped resolve number of serious incidents at the school that may never have been reported if he wasn’t interacting with the students on a daily basis, Skarban said.

The sheriff and school district agreed in August to develop an SRO program, but the timing wasn’t right to include the new position in the 2025 county budget, he said.

“I had to have my stuff in by September, and at that point the lawyers were still passing the agreement back and forth,” Skarban said. “By the time I got the contract back, it was too late to incorporate into my budget.”

Blaskowski, Hanson and Skarban met at the sheriff’s office to discuss how to move forward, and they came up with the idea of using the Gillett Police Department. Skarban noted that the city police budget is about $320,000, which could be supplemented by the district’s $80,000 budget for the school resource officer.

The proposal is to have a trial run from January to June, with the city providing the school resource officer. The other two Gillett police officers, including Chief Shane Breitenbach, would work day shifts and sheriff deputies would cover the city during night shifts and weekends, Skarban said.

Hanson told the council the SRO program will save money by investing in students today rather than after they get in trouble.

“It’s an ounce of prevention for a pound of cure,” Hanson said. “These are the kids who’ll grow up to be the citizens of Gillett growing up in a way that’s supportive and builds relationships with the community and law enforcement.”

Great communities have partnerships, the superintendent said.

“When the school, the local government, the county, all these organizations get together, you see growth instead of stagnation,” he said. “That’s what we talked about — if we can build these kinds of partnerships, and not just stop here, not just do the SRO, bring the community into the school, partner with the city to try to do events, we’re going to see economic growth. We’re going to see positive growth in our community.”

Alderperson Irene Drake said the idea needs to be reviewed by the council’s Health, Protection and Licensing (HPL) Committee, which reviewed the initial proposal and took a pass in August.

“We need to look at the figures,” Drake said. “I don’t think anyone is questioning that it’s not a good program. We just didn’t think we’d be able to do it financially.”

Blaskowski said with the sheriff’s department’s cooperation, the trial could proceed at no net cost to the city.

“A lot of those questions that we had when we talked about the SRO would be answered in this six-month period,” the mayor said.

The group agreed to schedule a joint meeting between the HPL committee and the school district’s ad hoc committee on a school resource officer before the council’s Dec. 5 meeting to discuss the details.

wbluhm@newmedia-wi.com