By James Lomuscio
Westport’s Board of Finance tonight heard a request for funding three school resource officers (SROs) for the fall, an addition estimated to cost about $320,000.
Brian Stern, finance board chairman, said the board will vote on the funding request at its Wednesday, July 11, meeting.
No exact dollar amount was presented tonight, but Police Chief Foti Koskinas said the salary for each SRO with benefits would be $124,557, plus the cost of vehicles at each school, each vehicle estimated to cost $34,500.
Schools Superintendent Colleen Palmer said the overall cost would be offset by sunsetting the DARE officer position and reassigning it as an SRO.
According to Palmer, one SRO would be stationed at Staples High School, the site of a school shooting threat in February. The other two would be assigned to the town’s two middle schools and from time to time visit the elementary schools.
It is expected that the town and the Board of Education would share the cost of the SROs, but percentages have not been established.
Michael Rea, finance board vice chairman, said he spoke with the Milford Public Schools, learning that the district’s SRO costs are shares equally between the town and the schools.
“How do you have that many people with no protection,” Rea said about Westport’s lack of SROs. “The risk is real.”
Calling SROs “a huge preventive force,” Palmer said Westport is the only district in its district reference group, known as a DIRG, not to have an SRO.
Weston, where she served as superintendent before coming to Westport, has an SRO. Other towns she cited were Greenwich, New Canaan, Darien and Ridgefield.
Palmer said she had been asking to integrate SROs in Westport since the fall.
“This was not an emotional reaction to the horrific school shootings that happened in the last six months,” she said.
Stern said at the opening of the meeting that in the wake of such shootings, “We can’t deny people are worried about it, and it’s up to the town and the Board of Education to lessen their fears.”
He added that the town’s funding SROs was not a temporary measure, “but an investment for a long period of time.”
“It’s a problem you can’t solve but manage, and you have to make sure they’re managed properly,” Stern said.
He said the board looked forward public input before the July 11 meeting.
