Members of the Seymour Board of Police Commissioners said they’ll take a look at their budget and staffing levels to see if there’s a way to get a police officer assigned to the public schools in town.
The move comes a week after parents complained at a school board meeting about a lack of police presence within the schools, including when students are dropped off in the morning and picked up in the afternoon.
In addition, some were concerned because a man entered the high school building last Friday morning wearing a paper hat of some kind. School officials stopped him immediately and asked who is was and why he was there.
The man claimed he had been invited to a 30th class reunion. None had been scheduled, and the man was politely escorted out, police were called and he was taken into custody.
With that in mind, members of the school board and the police commission talked for about two hours about police presence within the district at a meeting Thursday (Sept. 12).
Much of the meeting was spent explaining that a school resource officer (SRO) is not the same as a youth officer, which isn’t the same as an officer who is simply assigned to the schools.
Yashu Putorti, chairman of the school board, indicated parents were often using the term “school resource officer,” a position that requires lots of classroom time, when they probably really wanted a cop in school acting more like a security guard.
At the same time, Kristin Jasmin, wife of Michael Jasmin, a Seymour cop who was previously assigned to the schools, presented the police commissioners with a 14-page petition from parents who said they want a school resource officer.
John Popik, a police commissioner, guided the school board toward possibly assigning an officer — a “school safety officer,” he called it — who would be assigned to all four schools in the district and check in routinely with all the buildings.
But whatever they want, the Seymour Police Department is limping around severely understaffed and disgracefully underfunded, Chief Michael Metzler said — repeatedly.
Five officers are currently out on worker’s comp. A few others are being trained in the police academy and won’t hit the streets until March or so.
After the Sandy Hook school shooting, Seymour had a heavy police presence in schools from January to June.
But that was paid through overtime, Metzler said, which the department can’t afford.
As it is, Metzler said the department is spending $5,000 to $6,000 a week on overtime — a pace that will blow the $150,000 yearly overtime budget out of the water.
Lucy McConologue, chairwoman of the police commission, said while the commission will look at the possibility of assigning an officer to the district, no one’s making any promises.
After the meeting, Putorti said he was satisfied with the police commission’s response, because they were at least willing to take a look at their budget and see if anything can be done.
