Here are more details on a popular program offered by the Southborough Police Department:
The Southborough Police Department will be holding it’s 12th Junior Police Academy from July 25- 29, 2011 from 8:30am-3:15pm.
The Academy, which is held at the Trottier Middle School, is open to boys and girls who will be entering the 7th, 8th or 9th Grades. Applications are available at the Southborough Police Department, or by sending an email request to landry@southboroughma.com or rmattioli@southboroughma.com. Cost is $40 per cadet.
If you have a chance to send your child to this….DO IT!! This is the best thing for kids and you can’t beat the price. Kevin Landry and the staff there are fantastic with the kids and they have an absolute blast. It also is the best bang for your buck! Thank you Kevin for pushing to get this back this year. It is important for the youth of our town.
I’ll admit I’m confused. We’re talking about raising fees at the transfer station due to revenue shortfalls but we’ve just added two sergeants and a lieutenant to the department. Some Officer will have to fill Officer Landry’s patrol shift so we’ll end up paying overtime to cover his 365 hours at this event. Does this make sense?
It seems like yesterday we were being told by the department that crime was on the increase in Southborough, yet a few weeks later, this blog published statistics indicating crime was actually down.
With all of these increases in payroll at the department, and now this block of overtime, perhaps the police department needs to do a better job explaining how the taxes are spent in the police department.
This might be a nice event for kids, but is it a necessity now?
Opps – I meant to write “… to cover his 35 hours at this event.”
I like Officer Landry. Please don’t take this as an attack on the department. Its just that there had not been an adequate job by anyone in town to explain why we needed to create 2 new supervisory positions (1 LT and 1 Sergt.) and promote a third. Last year we had department heads taking days off to help balance the budget. It seems like we just say yes to every request from the police and fire departments, yet we jump all over the schools.
Very untrue…..very untrue indeed. The police, fire, and DPW take the brunt of cuts every year because of the schools.
Mr Kendall,
I wish it were that simple.
The only people “taking the brunt” each year are the taxpayers whose taxes go up each year and, yes, the schools are the majority of that cause and yes, the majority of the taxpayers voted for the increases at town meeting so that’s how our system works.
I hate to see the schools versus the rest of the town departments canard. The discussion should be “What is the least amount of taxes needed for the appropriate level of services the town NEEDS, not what any of the departments want.” Tell me one department that came to town meeting with a lower budget than the previous year! Businesses use the concept of zero based budgeting. Why don’t we?
But isn’t it also fair to say that adding a Lieutenant, and adding an additional Sergeant to the Police department – when there has not been an increase in the number of police officers- also increases our tax expenses?
If Dr Gobron proposed adding an additional assistant principal at 2 schools – without adding extra teachers – there would be an uproar. Now I’ll grant you that it would also probably pass at town meeting :) In fact, the regional high school eliminated an assistant principal position last year to help their budget.
But I think this is a fair question to ask. There shouldn’t be any sacred cows in town in terms of protected budgets. I know my household expenses are way down from past years due to unemployment.
Also – Officer Mattioli –
When you wrote “What have you done for the youth of Southborough?” did you mean to imply that as a taxpayer I have no right to legitimately question how taxes are spent? How and what I have done for youth in this town is about as relevant as my hair color.
Questioning how our tax dollars are spent is everyone’s right. Its not being negative.
And I’d appreciate it if you could set me straight if I am wrong here but as I wrote earlier, if Officer Landry is at this week long event and he is not working his normal patrol shift, then isn’t it reasonable to assume that someone else must be taking his shift as a patrol officer? And isn’t it the customary process in the Police Department that another Officer would get paid overtime to fill that shift? That’s why I asked about the overtime cost to back fill Officer Landry’s shift. If my reasoning is wrong, please set me straight.
Don’t confuse my concern about expenses for this event with the genuine respect I have for Officer Landry and the good work the does for the town.
John,
I believe it is true that the school budgets have increased faster than the Fire and Police budgets but with one exception there have not been cuts to Fire and Police budgets. A cut is when you have less money this year than last year. As I am certain you know, this is something many of us in the private sector actually experience and have to adapt to.
To a taxpayer, a “cut” is when there is insufficient funding to allow the same level of service as last year. Costs rise and “cuts” exist also when there is not enough money to keep up with rising costs. This argument is not about mathematics, it is about the actual services that are being provided year after year. In that respect, public safety has seen pretty drastic “cuts.”
Kudos to the Southborough Police Department and to Rick Mattioli for providing this service for our town.
I would like to take this opportunity to set you straight “Luxury or Necessity”.
There is NO OVERTIME being used to run our academy. Why is it you have to be so negative? What have you done for the youth of Southborough?
Thank you Rick for clearing this up. This is the best program in town for our youth. Many of the officers DONATE their time to make this run. There are also parents who are willing for volunteer to help get this program to run. We have given up on many programs in this town for the youth because of finances and some people cannot afford to pay for camp. This is an alternative for those people as it is cost effective in a tough economy. All of my children will be at this program this summer. I only hope there is enough kids signed up for it to run. We lose and we lose every time we turn around, how about we just concede a little bit for the youth of the town. This is a great program and people like luxury or necessity are the ones who get things like this killed. Thank you to the Chief, Kevin, Rick and all the others who are making this happen this year.
Of note, this program did not run last year because of budgets and it isn’t as expensive as you think to run it.
Matthew participated in this program for 2 summers and also participated in the Jr. State Police Academy in New Braintree. The programs gave Matt a sense of belonging, taught him discipline and gave him confidence. It was one of the things Matt really looked forward to and enjoyed. Now Matt is a PFC in the Army serving his country in Iraq, he wants to come home and train to be a police officer. This program was a blessing for a young person who had little direction and could have made some bad choices but didn’t because he knew it would hurt his future plans. I’m with “living the dream” take full advantage of this program. Thank you Southborough Police.
That’s awesome Ann! We need to do all we can for our kids and teach them to be the best they can. This program helps foster that. You should be proud of the man your son has become. Kudos to you.