The program that has strived to help keep kids across New Jersey off drugs for years may be cut from Hillside schools.

Police say the decision to cut D.A.R.E. is not theirs, but rather one made by town administrators when they commissioned a study on how to better run the police department. A recommendation in that study is to reassign D.A.R.E. officers to street patrol.

Mayor Joseph Menza says one option is to have the schools pay for or split the cost of the D.A.R.E program. In a statement today, the chief of police in Hillside told News 12 New Jersey he vehemently objects to the elimination of D.A.R.E.

This year's program was supposed to start today, but without a budget in place, Menza says he would have no money to pay for it.