GV approves $500,000 Cherry Creek Schools SRO agreement; two council members vote no
Greenwood Village’s Aug. 3 council meeting approved the annual SRO IGA 6-2 after a fight over school-district communication.
Freda Miklin ·
On August 3, Greenwood Village City Council approved the annual intergovernmental agreement with Cherry Creek School District for the city to provide six school resource officers for the five public schools within the city’s boundaries: Cherry Creek High School, Campus Middle School, Belleview Elementary School, West Middle School, and Greenwood Elementary. The council voted 6-2. District 1 Council Member Paul Wiesner and Council Member Ann Nelson voted no.
The discussion followed two proposed emergency ordinances to create permit-parking-only areas in two neighborhoods adjacent to Cherry Creek High School. Wiesner said, “My disdain for the way Cherry Creek School District (CCSD) has dealt with this whole bond issue, remodel, lack of communication, lack of working with their neighbors…We are forced to take this action (create permit parking districts via emergency ordinances), which is costing us time, money, frustration with council members, frustration with our citizens, all because of a lack of neighborliness and communication that this school district is throwing on this city.”
The Villager asked when CCSD first began covering part of the cost of SROs at its Greenwood Village schools; no one in the room, including the city manager, knew the answer. Recollection and a public AI query used in the room dated a written IGA to 1996, with the 50% cost provision added in 2004. Those dates are printed as the paper’s best recollection, not as independently certified minutes.
The nine-page IGA for 2026-27 outlines purpose, plan, responsibilities, and procedures, including educational records SROs may access, gun safes at CCSD schools, and how student-related situations are handled. The agreement states that CCSD will pay GV 50% of the full cost of the SRO program — including salaries, benefits, training, vehicle usage, administrative overhead, and incidental expenses — for 175 school days and 14 joint training days. For 2026-27, that amount is $497,574.74.
Police Chief Dave Oliver, who took over from former Police Chief Dustin Varney earlier this year, told the council the city is looking to renew the annual IGA to provide school resource officers to Greenwood Village Cherry Creek Schools campuses. Nelson asked whether other schools, including Aspen Academy or Littleton High School, would get similar reimbursement ratios. Mayor George Lantz noted Aspen Academy is a private institution and that Nelson lives in a Littleton Public Schools area; SROs at public schools inside Littleton are provided by the City of Littleton.
Reached after the meeting, Wiesner said he wanted a discussion about protecting all students in schools within the city, “regardless of whether they are public, private, or religious.” He asked whether there is an emergency plan for religious and private schools that includes GVPD, practiced the way officers recently practiced for school emergencies at West Middle School.
Print source: The Villager, Vol. 44 No. 39, Aug. 20, 2026, pages 6 and 7. Issuu edition.