A tax increase in the Alma School District would go toward providing a police officer on each of the district’s four campuses and remodeling front entrances so that all visitors are routed through each school’s office.
An election is set for Sept. 17 on the proposal to increase the district’s millage by 1.2 mills for safety and security projects.
The proposal developed after a shooting at a Connecticut elementary school that resulted in the deaths of 20 first-graders and six school staff members.
“What caused that to get everyone’s attention was the fact that it was young children,” Superintendent David Woolly said.
The planned physical changes are intended to slow down a potential intruder, and if that happens, a full-time police officer would be able to respond, Woolly said. Armed police officers working in schools are known as school resource officers.
“I don’t think there’s any substitute for that trained police officer,” he said.
The School Board voted in June on the proposal to increase the millage from 43.4 mills to 44.6 mills. For the owner of a home valued at $100,000 currently paying $868 per year in school property taxes, the increase would bump the property tax bill by $24 to $892.
One mill is equal to one-tenth of a cent, and property owners pay taxes on 20 percent of their assessed property value.
The additional 1.2 mills would generate an estimated $170,000 annually, with $135,000 to pay the ongoing cost of three new school resource officers and the rest going to debt payments on a 35-year, $1.25 million bond. The district currently has one school resource officer.
School Board member Randy Coleman said most residents have responded positively and a couple have made negative comments. The proposal represents what the district thinks is the best plan for improving security, he said.
“We’d all hate to be in a situation where we knew we should have done it and just didn’t,” Coleman said.
The shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut took place just before the Christmas break. The proposal for Alma developed between January and June and involved representatives from each school who made recommendations for improving building safety.
“The different faculty groups all had the same No. 1 item,” Woolly said. “That was a school resource officer working full-time on each campus.”
The millage increase also will allow for renovations to make campuses more secure and to purchase additional video cameras so that a camera is placed at each exterior door and inside key areas, giving school staff members the ability to monitor everyone who enters the building from every entrance, Woolly said.
Front entrances into buildings are 25 to 50 yards from the main office, but they also lead to a lobby area with corridors leading to classrooms, Woolly said. The district plans to build walls to channel visitors into the office first.
Plans also include enclosing 76 classrooms in the primary, intermediate and middle schools that were built with an “open” concept, Woolly said. Those classrooms have a 6-footwide opening, but no door. The district plans to enclose those classrooms and provide a door that can be locked.
School districts can outfit employees as armed private security guards like the Clarksville School District in Johnson County decided to do, but school security is just part of the job for a school resource officer, Alma Police Chief Russell White said.
School resource officers also work to build relationships with the children and teenagers on their campuses, including by reading with elementary children, White said.
The department cannot afford to add school resource officers within its current budget of $1.45 million, which has remained flat for about five years, White said. The cost of a new officer exceeds $100,000 with $58,800 for salary and benefits, $45,000 for an equipment and a police car, and $3,200 in personal equipment.
The district and city split the cost of the current school resource officer’s salary and benefits, White said. The Alma Police Department, which employs the school resource officer, furnishes the equipment and vehicle.
The district will pay the full salary and benefits for the additional three officers, but the Police Department will supply the equipment and vehicles, White said.
If voters approve the proposal, White plans to start with existing officers working overtime as school resource officers until the additional school resource officers are in place, he said. The new school resource officers would work on a nine-month contract.
The Alma School District operates on a $32 million budget, and the district’s millage provides $6.25 million annually.
“We don’t have the flexibility in our budget to do it,” Woolly said. “These are all things we need to do. We’re asking the voters if they agree with us. If this proposal is not approved, these are still things we need to do.”
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 07/30/2013