By James Lomuscio
Unless a denial is reversed by the Representative Town Meeting (RTM), the Westport Board of Education will not get two more school resource officers (SROs) this fall, serving the town’s middle schools.
By a vote of 3 to 2 with 1 abstention the Board of Finance tonight — for the second time — denied First Selectman Jim Marpe’s request for a $260,000 appropriation to the Police Department’s budget to hire two SROs at Coleytown Middle School and Bedford Middle School. The earlier denial was for $320,000.
“I think this is part of an entire security program,” said Marpe in making the request. “It’s one element; it’s not the only element.”
Marpe said he based his request on input from Schools Superintendent Colleen Palmer, who has used SROs in other leadership roles before coming to Westport, as well as recommendations from Police Chief Foti Koskinas.
But now, only one SRO scheduled for the fall will be at Staples High School, to be funded by a DARE officer’s position, which is being phased out.
That is unless the 36-member RTM decides to overturn the finance denial by a supermajority of 70 percent of those present and voting.
Palmer said last week that if the Board of Finance again denied the request, she would take the matter to the town’s legislative body.
The Board of Finance by a vote of 4 to 2 on July 11 rejected a Board of Eduction request for $320,000 to add two SROs to the middle schools to join one already funded at Staples High School. (See WestportNow July 11, 2018)
“The superintendent and I are responsible for the safety of the students once they get there,” Koskinas said in response to public comments that stressed instead interventions, mental health awareness and driving safety.
However, Board of Finance Chairman Brian Stern and members Lee Caney and Jim Westphal spoke against the appropriation.
Westphal said schools are the safest places for children, and that the appropriation would amount to “spending a lot of money” on a limited issue, when suicide, drug overdoses and traffic accidents were greater causes of student deaths.
Michale Rea, finance board vice chairman, and member Andrea Moore voted for the appropriation. Nancie Dupier, a Democrat sworn in tonight to replace John Hartwell, abstained.
“This is something we should be doing,” said Rea. “We’re better off getting this right now, than God forbid, after an event. I don’t want to sensationalize what could happen.
“I’m looking to cut down on response time for a mass shooting,” he added. “Most people in town expect us to protect our kids in our schools. Twenty percent of our population is going to be in eight buildings, and we can’t protect them? Now is the time. It’s an insurance policy, guys. It might never happen.”
Stern said the schools already did a good enough job with interventions via counselors.
Koskinas, saying he did not to diminish the role of counselors, said he would put his faith in a trained officer rather than a counselor during a time of an active shooter.
“Sixty percent of the mass shootings have happened in communities just like ours,” Koskinas said. “Parkland could be Westport. Westport could be Parkland.”
RTM members Peter Gold and Kristan Hamlin spoke against the appropriation, as did longtime Westporter Donald Bergmann.
Their comments were countered by school board members Candace Savin and Karen Klein, as well as RTM member Ellen Lautenberg.
Lautenberg said her support was based on hearing Palmer’s experience. She also said she did not want Westport to be the only town not to have SROs, and then have “something happen that we didn’t expect.”
The money for the two additional SROs would have come from a $275,999 Board of Education giveback to the town via the schools’ 2017-18 budget surplus.
In another matter, the finance board also unanimously approved tonight a transfer of $250,000 of unexpended funds from the past academic year to the schools’ carry-over account, bringing the account balance to $286,000, according to Elio Longo, school business administrator.
The Board of Education voted unanimously July 23 to request the SRO appropriation following the finance board’s earlier denial of the $320,000 request.
Following the finance board’s denial, Palmer also said she had learned from Gary Conrad, the town’s business administrator, that the cost of the two officers would be closer to $260,000, considering nine months for the academic year.
Finance board member Lee Caney pointed out tonight during the approval of the minutes that request was made by the school board, not the town, which it should have been, making the initial request inappropriate and its denial null and void.
Palmer, who was not at tonight’s meeting and away on vacation, has been an ardent supporter of SROs since last fall.
She has repeatedly pointed out that Westport is the only school system in its DIRG (district reference group) not to utilize them. Calling them paramount to student safety, she has said she would cut any other program before cutting SROs.
