Reed says weekend roundtable with educators and parents on school safety a success as they tout continuing SRO programs...
Local Congressman Tom Reed is hopeful that there will be some money for local school districts to improve safety measures from an approximately $70-million appropriation in the new, two-year federal spending bill. Reed was at the Brocton Central School District late last Friday to meet with local school administrators, teachers... parents and others about the funding. He says he was looking for feed-back on how that money could be used to make schools safer in light of more recent shootings in the U-S... such as School Resource Officer programs. He believes there's a lot of bi-partisan support for such programs... though it might not be through a program like the federal COPS Program in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Reed says last Friday's meeting was a good one... considering it was a Friday afternoon... and, the session went until about 6 p.m.
Horrigan looking at possibly contracting-out for a County Home Administrator...
Chautauqua County Executive Vince Horrigan is looking at hiring someone to replace the County Home's Administrator... but, he is expected to do it on a contractural basis. Horrigan says they hope to replace Tim Hellwig in that position shortly. He adds, though, that any such change would have to meet with the approval of the state Health Department... so he can't go into "a lot of detail on that." Horrigan says Hellwig will be leaving the position at the end of the month to take over as director of the Cattaraugus County nursing homes. The county legislature will vote at it's Feb. 26 meeting on whether to sell the home to two local companies formed by VestraCare for $16-million. However... it will likely take 15 to 18-months to complete the transaction.
JPS schedules Public Forum to get input on 2014-15 budget priorities...
A public forum has been scheduled for tomorrow night by the Jamestown School District to gather input on priorities for the district's 2014-2015 budget. That from Superintendent Tim Mains... who says the session will get underway at 6:30 p.m. at the school board Conference Room at the District Offices. Mains says this is something new for the district... and, will allow participants to offer their opinions about what programs work... and, which one's don't. He says they want to gather that input after the meeting, and develop a report that will help guide the board through the budget process. The budget forum will be held at the Jamestown District Offices on Martin Road from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
