Posted at: 08/05/2009 5:38 PM
Updated at: 08/05/2009 6:25 PM
By: Eyewitness News 4

Deputies pulled from Bernalillo County schools

Sheriff Darren White

Sheriff�s Deputies won�t be on duty at seven public schools in Bernalillo County this fall because of shortages in the force.

Right now, the Sheriff�s Department is 40 deputies short of authorized strength. There are 30 cadets one month away from graduation, but they won't be ready to work alone until January.

Sheriff Darren White decided not to assign the usual school resource officers for seven schools in the county.

"Bottom line, we have to have enough deputies to answer the calls for service. We were just in a position where I couldn't pull those seven deputies out to put them in the schools right now. It would have been an officer safety issue,� he said.

The shortage means no deputies at Rio Grande High School, Polk, Harrison, and at Ernie Pyle Middle School in the South Valley. In the North Valley, Taylor and Taft Middle Schools will be without a deputy, as well as Roosevelt Middle School in Tijeras Canyon.

APS police are making adjustments, said Deputy Police Chief Steve Tellez.

�It will make it harder for the officers that are working at other schools because where we have two officers, now we'll have one officer. So basically what we're going to do is, the schools that have two officers, we're going to take one of those officers out and put them at one of those seven other schools."

APS Chief Operations Officer Brad Winter said the school district will continue to work with the Sheriff�s Department.

�They have done a lot for Albuquerque Public Schools. Sheriff White has made it clear that this is only to last between three months to six months and then we will have those officers back into those seven county schools."

The sheriff says he wanted to hire retired law officers to fill the school vacancies, but it could not reach a working agreement with the Deputies� union.