Newtown school security on front burner

Nanci G. Hutson

Updated 11:24 pm, Thursday, January 30, 2014

More Information

In 2011/12, Newtown schools had one school resource officer assigned to the high school, middle school and a school resource/youth officer assigned to the intermediate school; there were three unarmed security guards at the high school. After the mass shooting tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, all district schools were assigned at least two full-time police officers and unarmed security guards in each school. This school year, there are 11 unarmed security guards , the three school resource officers and three more police officers for the in-district elementary schools. Sandy Hook has two Monroe officers assigned to its temporary campus in that town.For the school system, the cost has jumped from $139.000 in 2011/12 to more than half a million anticipated for the coming school year. To date, federal grants and a town contingency fund have helped cover those costs; those funds are likely to be exhaused in coming years.

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NEWTOWN -- The price of school security in Newtown is not a matter of dollars and cents.

Ask school leaders, parents and staff and they will say school security in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting is the price that must be paid so teachers can do their jobs and students can learn.

And yet, there is also a cost for increased security measures, including the addition of armed local police officers in all seven of the district's schools.

At a workshop Thursday night on a proposed district budget of $71.58 million, Board of Education members grappled with how the the ongoing focus and concern about school security will be addressed this budget season.

At present, neither First Selectman Pat Llodra nor Interim Schools Superintendent John Reed have included school security costs in their operating budgets for next year.

For this fiscal year, the town consented to increased security measures that assigned additional Newtown police officers to all three in-district elementary schools on an overtime basis. Monroe police have provided two officers at the Sandy Hook Elementary School relocated to a former middle school in that town.

The Board of Finance established a contingency fund of about $400,000 to help offset those additional costs, and the town has received $1.5 million in federal grants to help replenish the depleted police overtime account for those costs. The town also gave one-time grants of $50,000 each to the three private schools in town.

Finance Director Robert Tait was out of the office Thursday, so the exact police costs for the town were not immediately available.

Reed said security costs have been a matter of discussion between school and town leaders throughout the year. In addition, a town security committee was formed to explore ways to pay for extra safety personnel, but at a cost that might be less than hiring local police officers at overtime rates.

For the 2014-15 year, the Newtown Police Department did not add any additional officers to its 45-member force to accommodate extra security.

The school board was given a complicated breakdown of school security costs associated with a combination of nine armed, retired police officers and eight unarmed security guards. The figure was in excess of $500,000.

The retired officers would go through Connecticut State Police Academy training and be screened through the Newtown Police Department, but be employed in the schools where they could do all police duties other than make arrests.

Without grants or any other town funds, the operating addition to the school budget would be just over $216,000; the remainder is incorporated into existing costs. With the grants, the cost to the district could be just over $7,000.

School board members said this is a key matter that needs to be dealt with, but there was concern about how to market this to the public so that it does not take away from the operational expenses the district also needs for educational purposes.

"This is a security item,'' said board member Keith Alexander, noting this part of the budget needs to be viewed from a cost and need perspective. He said he would like to have a conversation about even the type of security personnel that the district is going to employ. "Everyone's feeling about security is fluid.''

School board member John Vouros asked if there is a way for security to be broken out of the budget process as a separate cost.

"Security is totally different than anything else in this (budget) book,'' he said.

Reed acknowledged that security is a touchy topic, and likely will require all of the town's "problem solvers'' to be a part of the conversation. But he advised that he does not want to see this debate degenerate into a divisive community dialogue.