Manatee County School District to spend $1.5 million on school resource officers

BRADENTON -- The Manatee County School District will spend almost $1.5 million for police working as school resource officers in the district's schools for the 2015-16 school year.

That expense covers a SRO at each of the district's six high schools, with an additional officer at Manatee High; two officers at Horizons Academy, the alternative education site; one officer at Manatee Technical College; one at each of the district's 10 middle schools; one at Palmetto Elementary; one at Anna Maria Elementary; one officer to cover the seven elementary schools in the city of Bradenton; and two supervisors.

While all the middle and high schools are covered, only two of the 33 elementary schools have a full-time officer. The seven city schools share that one officer, but the remaining 24 elementary sites don't have a dedicated SRO. If something happens at one of those campuses, officials have to call for help.

Because of personnel costs and budget constraints, school district officials aren't sure whether they'll ever be able to cover each elementary school with a dedicated SRO, which officials say would be ideal.

"We may not ever get to one-to-one," said Troy Nelson, the school district director of security. "We're going to keep looking for ways to increase it."

Three of the four contracts with local law enforcement agencies are up for approval during Tuesday's Manatee County School Board meeting. The other contract was already approved. Overall, the district will

spend $1,471,201.75 for 23 school resource officers and two supervisors.

Although the contracts are just being approved, all officers have been in the district schools since the start of the academic year. The district sends payments to the agencies four times a year, with the first installments slated for November.

Here's a look at each contract:

$50,000 will go to the Holmes Beach Police Department, to cover half the cost of one full-time SRO at Anna Maria Elementary School.

This is the second year in a row the district has helped pay for the Holmes Beach officer. In previous years, the police department provided the SRO to the school free of charge.

$94,190 to the Palmetto Police Department, to cover half the cost of three full-time SROs. There is one SRO at Palmetto High, one at Lincoln Middle and one at Palmetto Elementary. The Palmetto SRO agreement was approved during the Oct. 13 meeting.

This is the first year the district will help pay for an SRO at Palmetto Elementary. Last year, the Palmetto Police Department provided the officer free of charge.

$209,665 will go to the Bradenton Police Department, to cover half the cost of four full-time SROs. Two SROs are stationed at Manatee High School and one is stationed at Sugg Middle School. The fourth SRO is available to respond to the seven elementary schools in the city limits: Ballard, Rogers Garden, Manatee, Miller, Moody, Sea Breeze and Wakeland.

The one SRO from Bradenton police who is covering the elementary schools is new this year, Nelson said. Last year, it was just the two officers at Manatee High and one at Sugg.

$1,117,346.75 will go to the Manatee County Sheriff's Office to cover a little more than half the cost of 15 deputies and two supervisors. There will be one deputy at each high school in the county, one at each middle school, two at Horizons Academy and one at the Manatee Technical College main campus. The two supervisors oversee the deputies.

The sheriff's contract is the only contract that's not an even 50-50 split, Nelson said. To cover all the middle schools in the county, the district had to provide more money, since the sheriff's budget did not include the entire costs.

In years to come, Nelson hopes the school district will be able to work with the county, which handles the sheriff's budget, on bringing the cost split down to the 50-50 agreement.

Past problems

SROs and security in schools have been a hot topic in Manatee County for more than a year, since former Superintendent Rick Mills and the school board agreed to hire private security guards for the district's elementary schools, citing a community survey that ranked safety and security very high.

Community outcry -- over the criminal background of some company leaders and the guards, the idea of private guards instead of trained law enforcement officials, and whether it was legal for the guards to have guns on campus -- hampered the process immediately.

After a few highly charged board discussions and postponed votes, the school board approved hiring Sarasota Security Patrol to bring in security guards for the elementary schools, using some additional money left in the budget cycle that officials weren't expecting.

Ultimately, the private guards only worked in the schools for about a month without guns, before Mills unilaterally decided to cancel the contract without approval from the board.

Mills canceled the contract because the district had not followed the Sunshine Law in going through the evaluation process for picking a company. The district did not properly advertise that a committee would be evaluating the companies that put in a bid for the contract. To settle a Sunshine lawsuit filed by a nonprofit watchdog group, Mills canceled the contract, which then made that lawsuit null and void.

The guards worked their last day in Manatee schools at the end of October.

For the rest of the year, all elementary schools except Palmetto and Anna Maria did not have dedicated SROs.

The issue led to a lot of charged emotions between school board members and the superintendent, and resulted in two more lawsuits.

The company sued the district, saying Mills did not have the right as superintendent to cancel the contract, saying it had to be a decision made by the board. The company also said the district was not making payments on time during the contract period.

That lawsuit was dismissed.

A current lawsuit is still underway. Chad Ritchie, the head of the company, is suing the district, saying it is not releasing information that should be public record, most notably emails that school board member Dave Miner sent to the media and members of the community about the company from both his school email and personal email account.

District officials said they had not provided the records because they had not received the information from Miner.

Miner was a vocal critic of hiring a private company from the start of the process.

That case is still open.

Looking forward

There was no change in the agreement in the contract with the sheriff's office, according to Sheriff Brad Steube. The sheriff's office provided deputies for middle schools, high schools and Manatee Technical College, but not at the elementary level, he said.

Having a dedicated officer at Palmetto Elementary was "fantastic" last year, said Palmetto Police Chief Scott Tyler. The officer was paid for entirely by the city last year, and Tyler said he was glad the school district is helping with the cost this year.

"I think the community here in Palmetto loved it," Tyler said.

Holmes Beach Police Chief William Tokajer said he's happy to continue to partner with the school district this year, particularly since the district was able to provide a more even split of the SRO cost this year compared to last year.

Tokajer pointed to recent news events and shootings on school campuses as examples of why security is needed in schools.

"With the way things are going nationwide, it's just a very positive thing we can do," he said.

In coming years, Nelson, the school district's security chief, said he expects more elementary schools to have some coverage from an SRO, similar to the current agreement with the city of Bradenton police department, with one officer overseeing a handful of elementary schools.

"We started and stepped that way with Bradenton this year," he said.

In previous years, Bradenton did have an officer in each elementary school, Bradenton Police Chief Michael Radzilowski said. A few years ago, budget cuts led to no officer at any of the city's elementary schools.

This year, they reinstated one officer handling the seven elementary schools, Radzilowski said.

"We want to try and provide our children with the biggest safety net possible," he said.

The elementary SRO works in conjunction with the different principals and administrators to split time between the schools. Radzilowski said having an officer on hand in the schools helps establish trust and understanding from a young age.

Radzilowski said he'd like to see a one-to-one ratio for SROs and schools, but until politicians actually raise taxes to help fund public safety, it won't happen.

"If everybody agrees children are the most important, why not spend the money?" he said. "I don't have enough officers, but people don't want to pay higher taxes."

Meghin Delaney, education reporter, can be reached at 941-745-7081. Follow her on Twitter @MeghinDelaney.

This story was originally published October 24, 2015 at 11:58 PM with the headline "Manatee County School District to spend $1.5 million on school resource officers ."