Blue Sheepdog

Let’s say members of your community demanded more funding for your department. It would never happen, you say?

Well, students organized a peaceful protest earlier this month, demanding the University of South Florida increase funding to the 41-officer USF Police Department. Among the complaints the students lodged with administration, are that the police department is understaffed, the department is underfunded, and the University administrator that the police department reports to mishandled $1.3 million in funding.

Well, the administrators heard, and they responded: The University will change who the police department reports to, and they will hire a private company to provide unarmed security guards.

Hmm… I wonder if the students feel these unarmed security guards will be useful if an armed criminal was to show up? Oh wait, I forgot. The campus is a “gun free” zone, so no criminal would dare bring a weapon onto the campus, right?

According to the St. Petersburg Times, the University is reportedly going to pay the security company $200,000 for a one year contract. Figure $25 per man-hour to put a warm body on site. The $200k works out to be 8000 man-hours. Well, with 24 hours in a day, that gets about 333 days a year that one unarmed security guard can be on campus.

Yep, USF is a much safer place now.

To my brothers in blue at USF, stay safe and keep the faith!

(From The Oracle)

Tampa - Unarmed rent-a-cops will patrol USF’s campus in the immediate future and University Police and other security and emergency-related departments will be rolled into a new Public Safety Division, university officials announced today.

USF will pay AlliedBarton Security Services - a national firm that handles security for shopping malls, offices, banks and 90 other universities - to staff rent-a-cops to patrol residence halls and other areas of campus, USF spokesman Ken Gullette said at a press conference.

The details of the services AlliedBarton will provide still need hammering out, but President Genshaft wants to come to an agreement as quickly as possible, Gullette said

The firm will likely provide some of the same services it offers to other universities, which include patrolling campus on foot, escorting students and faculty to their cars in the evening and setting up office posts near residence halls.

Director of Residence Services Tom Kane said offices in Holly K and the Andros Center will be created as posts for the new security guards.

The new Division of Public Safety will be responsible for several departments, including University Police, parking enforcement and emergency operations.

Carl Carlucci, USF’s Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, will act as the interim director until a search committee can identify a candidate to head the new division, Gullette said

The University Police Department was formerly part of Student Affairs and overseen by Vice President of Student Affairs Jennifer Meningall.

During the last three weeks, Student Body President Garin Flowers and former Associate VP of Student Affairs James Dragna have criticized Meningall’s management.

Led by Flowers and Student Body Vice President Faran Abbasi, more than 70 USF students staged a sit-in Oct. 16 to protest underfunding for University Police and call for third-party investigation into Dragna’s allegations Meningall mismanaged $1.3 million and intimidated employees with physical threats and racist and sexist remarks.

Gullette said the decision to move University Police out of the Student Affairs did not reflect negatively on Meningall’s leadership.