RENSSELAER — Rensselaer’s Common Council unanimously approved a new agreement guaranteeing that the city school district will have a police officer in its buildings this year as the city and district battle in court over allegations that each owes the other hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The contract’s approval at a special council meeting on Wednesday means the district will have an officer for the 2026-2027 school year, after Mayor John DeFrancesco said in a July social media post that the district was at risk of losing the city-provided officer.
The city filed a lawsuit in July, claiming the district did not pay for its share of a school resource officer’s salary from 2018 through 2026 under a prior agreement. The school district filed its own lawsuit weeks later, accusing the city of owing more than $430,290 in school property taxes it collected but never provided to the district from 2011 to 2015…