Districts hard-pressed to pay for replacing resource officers

When several Jefferson County school districts learned in January the state likely would stop paying troopers to provide on-campus security, they hoped they could find the money to fund the positions on their own. But with other state and federal funding cutbacks, that might not happen.

"We thought for a half second that we should go out and hire somebody else for security when we heard about this program being cut," Belleville Henderson Superintendent Rick T. Moore said. "But we can't hire anyone right now."

If the Legislature passes Gov. David A. Paterson's executive budget proposal, the other area districts that would lose their state police officers are Carthage, General Brown, South Jefferson and Thousand Islands.

The officers patrol school halls to prevent fights, respond to emergency situations and help students work through problems.

"Our resource officer has the experience and training to deal with security matters," South Jefferson Superintendent Jamie A. Moesel said. "Our current system works very well for us, where our resource officer can respond to incidents that happen during the school day."

The Watertown and Indian River districts pay for resource officers from the Watertown Police Department and the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department, respectively. The Watertown district pays about $55,000 each year for one resource officer, Superintendent Terry N. Fralick said.

Carthage district officials have talked briefly about bringing on an officer through another police agency. Cost will factor prominently into that decision, Superintendent Joseph M. Catanzaro said.

And if the district doesn't decide to bring on another resource officer, it may mean that other employees will have to take on some of the officer's duties.

"Our resource officer does a tremendous amount of things in the district," Mr. Catanzaro said. "If we lose him, those things will have to be taken up by administrators and other staff."

And putting a new person in that position means "we lose that security experience." Mrs. Moesel said.

She hasn't given up hope that the school resource program will be reinstated because the program also was proposed to be eliminated when Eliot L. Spitzer was governor, but was reinstated.