EUGENE DRISCOLL PHOTO
(Left to right) Aldermanic President Charles Sampson, Chief Gerald Narowski, and Matthew Conway.
In the wake of yet another school shooting, the school district and the police department are launching a plan to get a school resource officer at Derby High School — without raising taxes.
The effort was revealed during a public hearing on the proposed Derby budget Tuesday at City Hall.
Click the video to watch the meeting.
According to Superintendent Matthew Conway, the district would use “e‑rate” money — that is, federal money that pays for telecommunications services for schools — to contribute toward the officer’s salary. The city would pick up the officer’s benefits.
Conway said e‑rate money could be in the neighborhood of $60,000 to $68,000. The benefits would be about $11,000.
The officer to be assigned to the school would be named at a later date. The police department plans to use a new recruit who must go through the police academy first. So a dedicated school resource officer would not be on the job until sometime next year. However, officials are also talking about paying an existing officer overtime to do the job in the interim.
The idea came together in the past two days, and after a parent started a petition asking that a school resource officer be assigned to the high school. About 160 people had signed the online petition as of 9 p.m. Tuesday.
Conway said that while the school district has done much to tighten security at the schools, the high school is still vulnerable to the type of mass shootings that have become commonplace in the U.S.
The superintendent didn’t mince words about the threat.
“To me it’s no longer an if — it’s a when,” Conway said.
Conway said research is showing school shootings aren’t happening in large population centers. They’re happening in smaller cities and communities where everybody knows each other.
“When you look at what they are describing as the locations that have been attacked, we fit that description,” Conway said.
Armed school resource officers, Conway said, can save lives if a building comes under attack.
“It’s a piece we’re missing in Derby,” he said.
School board members George Kurtyka and Debra Borrelli spoke in favor of the idea as well.
Derby Police Chief Gerald Narowski said a school resource officer would be a welcome addition, expressing “100 percent support.”
However, he noted the police department is stretched thin. There are no more than a supervisor and two patrol officers on the road at any given time. Things like bike patrols and foot patrols — do not happen in Derby because there are not enough resources.
“We did have a SRO at one time. We have no money, as a city. And we’ve been asked to tighten our belts, year after year after year. I have no more magic left,” Narowski said, referring to his budget.
The chief credited Conway for thinking creatively.
“We are a poorer community. This is what we have to make due with,” Narowski said. “Finding funding outside the box is what we need to do to accomplish this goal.”
The budget under consideration by the tax board totals $42,715,091 — a budget-to-budget increase of less than 1 percent.
Taxes will not go up if the budget is approved in its current form.
The tax board is scheduled to vote on the budget Tuesday, May 29.
