[August 22, 2011] EDITORIAL: School safety costs Tweet Aug 22, 2011 (The Keene Sentinel - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- With scant public discussion about what it's been getting out of the full-time presence of a police officer on the Monadnock Regional High School campus in Swanzey, the Monadnock school board says it will pay no more than $50,000 for the service. This year's projected overall cost of what's called a school resource officer (SRO) is about $89,000. Ever since a federal grant for the job lapsed about eight years ago, the school district has paid the full freight; the arrangement has been spelled out in a memorandum of understanding between the multi-town school district and the town of Swanzey, which supplies the specially trained officer. The board's decision to drop its payment to $50,000 had an arbitrary look when it was announced in January, since the change did not seem to be based on any study of the impact of the SRO on discipline, safety or other aspects of school life. The arbitrariness has been accompanied by intransigence. Twice this summer the town of Swanzey offered to split the cost of the job with the school district, first by cutting the school share of the cost to $74,000, and then dropping the sum to $62,000 to recognize that summer school sessions were in suspension and the presence of the SRO wasn't needed. Under both proposals, Swanzey town taxpayers (who also pay Monadnock school taxes) would pick up the rest of the tab. In both cases, the school board stood firm at $50,000. A majority actually believes that the school system should pay more, but the rules of order call for two-thirds majority to make such a change, and that has been lacking. Last week, while sticking to its $50,000 demand, the school board also proposed a new memorandum of understanding that reduces the SRO's daily deployment at the 840-student school from eight hours to seven hours. In an interview, board member James Carnie said the reduced work schedule, when priced out under the latest cost-sharing terms proposed by the town, is about $50,000. The word expediency comes to mind, as the mathematical basis for the board's $50,000 limit surfaces a full eight months after the sum was first proposed. Micro-management is also evident in the board's unilateral adjustment of the hours of a contracted service without apparently considering the possible consequences on either the provider or the beneficiaries of that service. Finally, this: misinformation regarding the SRO budget. The word in some quarters is that the officer's budget includes $14,000 in costs for uniforms -- a startling total that exceeds the entire police department's annual uniform costs. In an interview, Carnie said that the costs of the officer's uniform needs are "in the thousands." Yet the worksheets that the Monadnock board members used while they were deciding the budget include a line item for uniforms and cleaning that's a bare $400. This is all quite ridiculous. If there is something defective in the school resource officer's work at Monadnock, then let the program be examined in an open and orderly way and be adjusted accordingly. And if there are claims of outlandish costs, then let them be based on facts. The current difference between the town's reduced request ($62,000) and what the school board says it will pay ($50,000) is $12,000. Surely within the district's $30 million overall budget there's room to cover that difference for the SRO service. ___ (c)2011, The Keene Sentinel (Keene, N.H.) To see more of The Keene Sentinel (Keene, N.H.), or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to www.sentinelsource.com Distributed by MCT Information Services [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]