1/16/2011: An anonymous reader provides a simple explanation for why UO’s Department of Public Safety has been so aggressive about their bizarre plan to convert to a sworn police force. It’s not the guns, it’s the money. Specifically the fat retirement benefits. From the PERS website:
and sure enough, while Oregon State Bill 116 allows creation of campus police, Oregon State Bill 405 is the sleeper, modifying the PERS rules to give the better benefits to:
{ + (f) Police officers who are commissioned by a university
under section 1 of this 2011 Act and who are classified as police
officers by the university. + }
I’m shocked. But what does Frances Dyke get out of pushing this through? Well, who will be in charge of deciding whom the university classifies as police officers?
UO wrote and introduced 2 separate bills into the state legislature for this, and somehow talked State Senator Floyd Prozanski into sponsoring them. Who did the lobbying, and did they report it to the Government Ethics Commision? Why waste a huge chunk of student and UO Senate time and UO goodwill in the legislature on this bill, which will benefit only 20-30 UO police, at an as yet undisclosed cost. Someone has some serious explaining to do.
Meanwhile read the rest of the posts on Ms Dyke’s past mismanagement of DPS, starting here.
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