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Council reviews extension of school resource officer agreement for 2025–26 school year
Summary
Council members reviewed an extension agreement to place school resource officers at three Binghamton schools for the 2025–26 school year, discussed available survey data and program metrics, and asked staff to obtain updated information from the district.
Binghamton City Council on Monday reviewed a proposed extension of the city’s agreement with the Binghamton City School District to provide school resource officers at the high school, East Middle School and West Middle School for the 2025–26 academic year.
Deputy Mayor Megan Hyman presented the extension agreement and said it updates dates and salaries for the officers. She said the posted SRO salary in the contract is $93,005 for an officer assigned as an SRO.
Why this matters: council members asked whether SROs demonstrably improve school safety and requested metrics beyond the district’s prior student survey. One council member noted that a significant salary disparity exists between the SRO figure and the district’s reported average teacher salary, and asked whether the duties and impact justified that gap.
Key points from the discussion - Hyman said the city and district previously provided council with a student survey administered by the district that addressed safety and students’ interactions with SROs; she offered to locate and share the survey results again. - Hyman said the SRO pay level is tied to Binghamton Police salary steps: officers typically must be on the force five years to reach the salary range reflected in the contract, so the SRO pay reflects the officer’s rank and time-in-grade under the police bargaining scale rather than an SRO-specific pay rate. - A council member asked whether the city tracks quantitative measures such as violent-incident counts, disciplinary disparities, or disparate impacts by race or disability; staff encouraged the council member to pursue district or department data and said they would seek any recent updates to the district’s survey.
Next steps Staff said they would ask the school district whether a more recent survey or additional metrics exist and would provide those materials to council. No formal vote on the extension was recorded at the work session; the item will return to council for formal acceptance and any required budget adjustments.
