Yesterday’s Mission Viejo Dispatch included a story regarding the Saddleback Unified School District’s plan to close Mission Viejo’s O’Neill elementary school. The Dispatch title reads “Could City save O’Neill elementary school.” You can read that post at www.missionviejodispatch.com.
This pending closure is the featured story in today’s Register/Saddleback Valley News. Faced with a $10 million shortfall this closure is reportedly going to save $500,000 in annual operating costs.
In my discussion with council member Schlicht this morning we discussed something to consider that might solve this funding shortfall. The city of Mission Viejo is currently paying five (5) Deputy Sheriff’s $203,312 each to function as SRO’s (school resource officers) for an annual outlay of $1,016,560. These Deputies cover our three high schools and possibly two intermediate schools. In our discussion Ms. Schlicht said “although I would prefer private security at our schools we can still provide one SRO per school district” with this proposal to save O’Neill.
After the Columbine shooting Federal Funding was made available for school security. At this time I do not know if SVUSD has ever applied for that funding. As the safest city of our size in the nation there is a question of justification relating to using Deputy Sheriff’s in this capacity. What data do we have to justify this million dollar expenditure? Prior to adding these officers did we have any incidents to warrant this sizable percentage of our OCSD contract?
As the O’Neill school serves our children, and whereas the city provides school crossing guards, Cathy would like to have us consider providing the $500,000 necessary to keep the school open. As proposed above that money can be shifted from the OCSD deputies now serving at our schools. Spending Mission Viejo taxpayer funds for our school districts is not a new concept. We already have another joint relationship with the SVUSD in that we provide over $500,000 to our school districts for after school and summer programs.
Unless someone can come up with a funding solution the school will be closed in June at the end of this semester.
Let me urge Mission Viejo parents who are concerned about the O’Neill School to attend Monday’s city council meeting and express your feelings on the pending closure. As this is not an Agendized item you will need to speak under Public Comments which follows the Closed Session and Presentations just after 6 p.m. If you feel uncomfortable addressing the council you can turn in a written Speaker Card expressing your opinion that will be given to the mayor by our city clerk.
I don’t think one officer can adequately cover three high schools. When I was in school, a police officer started patroling the campus my junior year. We didn’t have gang problems, but there were a lot of fights. The copy really made a difference in keeping order on campus. Must’ve been the gun.
It is also good to have at least one person with a gun on campus. If the private guards were armed, then I might agree with you. But that will never fly.
I doubt they are needed at the intermediate schools, not in Mission Viejo anyway.
Some guy.
If I can take you back to the July 2, 2007 city council meeting you might get a better picture of these deputies. In that meeting, by a split vote, we expanded from 3 to 5 deputies at an additional cost of $425,000. We really did not have a need at that time and I question the need today.
As to coverage. One school district, Capo., has one HS and the other, Saddleback, has two high schools. I agree that the staff should be able to handle any campus flairups at our intermediate and elementary schools. Respectfully, we are not in Newark, New Jersey where I grew up.
Although I’m uncertain exactly what it costs to provide one deputy to any given school it seems to me that a pricetag of $203,000 per officer is a bit bloated to begin with especially if the school happens to be on a conventional school year schedule of 9-10 months including summer school.
Anyone that has read the analysis of the Columbine incident should note that the school was located in an upper middle class suburb and had an SRO on site when the incident took place. The overall result of the Columbine masacre resulted in a lot of tactical, equipment and procedural changes but did not hinge on the presence or non-presence of an SRO.
The knee jerk reaction to put a “gun” on campus to protect the school has been a myth since the aftermath of Columbine and a virtual cash cow for law enforcement everywhere with the federal government paying much of the bill in the beginning.
While one deputy probably can’t efficiently protect 3 High schools, at Columbine one officer couldn’t effectively protect just that campus. Since ten years later reality and cooler heads are revisiting these expenses any alternative suggestions should be looked at seriously.
Anon.
Perhaps I need to clarify the numbers. Should this concept be acted on we would end up with one deputy covering one high school in the CUSD and a second deputy covering two high schools in the SVUSD. The $200,000 tab is not the amount of money directly received by the deputy. It does represent the burdened cost that we pay the OCSD.
Larry,
Possibly I don’t understand the term “burdened cost”. I took the dollar figure of $203,000 plus as the entire cost that was paid for each officer/deputy to work as an SRO. This would include all expense including salary, benefits, police vehicle and equipment maintenance and so forth.
The median payscale for a patrol officer in OC was roughly $77k in 2008. Just for the sake of the fact I do not have exact numbers, let us double it so to include overtime, equipment expenses and whatever else that might be included bringing it up to about $154,000. The county is charging over $203k per deputy if I understand you correctly. That still seems enormously high to me for a 10 month assignment.
poster #5, maybe this will help:
Agenda Item #21 of the July 2, 2007 Mission Viejo City Council Meeting:
Adoption of the 2007-2009 City Budget (0330-30)
Motion made by Council Member Kelley, seconded by Mayor Pro Tempore Ledesma, to increase the 2007-2008 budget by $425,000 for two School Resource Deputies, two fully-equipped patrol cars, and two portable radios.
#6
Thank you for your input. That would seem to raise the per SRO/deputy cost to $212k. In simple terms I think the city is getting hosed by the sheriff’s department. Police cars and the equipment to go on them are bought at fleet prices. Radios are a $2000-$5000 item with a life expectancy of five plus years. For the kind of money you are paying for these SRO’s I would expect them to be in brand new cars with the best equipment because otherwise that money is being spent somewhere else.
Larry. So I’m clear. I agree with you and the council member. I’m not taking issue with the proposal of deployment of the deputies. If the need is not there then the money would be more wisely spent elsewhere, such as saving the school.
I was just completely taken aback at the expense the city was paying in the first place.
We have a lot of cost we are not looking at,to have 1 deputy at the school full time, you will need some “extra” to cover for sick, ill, vacation etc. Plus the scheduling may not be the same, ie 10 or 12 hour shifts vs. the 7 to 3 of the schools. Add payroll taxes to that 77K (10%) Workers comp + Overtime, Medical and Health insurance, training, recruitment, turnover, lawsuit insurance, and don’t forget the juicy Pension!
Or we could call them as needed, and throw the thug students out of the school! Cost 0 + 0
Bigmarkod,
Your point is taken but I suspect that the flat inflated amount the sheriff charges covers all of those contingencies. I would be more interested in what these deputies do for the 13 holidays, two weeks for Winter break, one week for spring break, and the month(s)school is out for summer.
Folks. Based on the above comments let me share text from page 13 of our 24 page Contract with the OCSD which reads in part PAYMENT: (Continued) COST OF SERVICE
School Resource Services
Five (5) Deputy Sheriff lls
@$203,312/each $1,016,560
By burdened I refer to the “add-on” costs imposed by the OCSD in our Contract that is basically a huge unbrella covering not only benefits per deputy but also our share of the jail costs, vehicles and communication equipment, etc.
You will love this.
The Mission Viejo city council majority, who recently doubled their monthly stipend and made it possible for them to get lifetime heath care at taxpayer expense, after only serving 12 years, part time, suggested that the SVUSD teachers take a pay cut. nice resolution.
Let me point out that we are dealing with two different government bodies. A city council and one of our two school districts. while they are not officially connected, we spend over $one million per year for these SRO Deputies along with crossing guards and our after school and summer programs that we contract out to the school districts.