DARE PAYS OFF

The presence of a School Resource Officer in Camrose schools is paying off
says the Camrose Police Service.

"We're spending a lot of time in the classroom building up confidence and
what we saw was not necessarily incidents increasing but the comfort level
of students, parents and teachers coming to us with their problems," said
former SRO Lorne Blumhagen.

In a presentation to city council the CPS put together a graph indicating
the types of incidents reported by students and the dates they occurred.
From September 1997 to June 1998 the SRO reported 71 incidents - ranging
from assaults to sexual offences to drugs - in schools. That number
increased to 107 from September 1998 to June 1999 and from September 1999
to date already 35 incidents have been reported.

Looking at the figures Blumhagen said it's obvious students feel some
comfort having the SRO on a regular basis.

Funding for the program, which includes the delivery of DARE, has been
divided between the Battle River Regional Division, community and local
business donations, the CPS, CDSS and fundraising projects by teachers and
DARE students. Over the past two years the city contributed $10,000 per
year, however, that commitment period has ended.

"We are preparing to solidify this position long term due to the
overwhelming success based on the previous two years and in light of recent
tragedies in the educational system," Chief of Police Marshall Chalmers
told council.

Ribstone and BRRD combined their efforts and have committed $30,000
annually towards the SRO position. Chalmers outlined that the salaries and
materials for the SRO position for the year 2000 totals $69,161. This
leaves $34,161 in unsecured funds.

After the presentation Mayor Norm Mayer said he could not comment on
whether council has decided to allocate funding for the program at this
time. The decision will be made along with others during budget
deliberations.