District grapples with panic-alert procurement mismatch and rising SRO contract costs
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Summary
District officials said they invested more than $5 million in a panic-alert system (audio enhancement) that is not among the four vendors later approved by state procurement, leaving the district to seek interoperability solutions; staff also reported guardian training interest and a potential doubling of SRO costs if districts must pay full contract rates.
District safety staff told trustees a state procurement process has complicated local panic-alert and safety-system investments.
Mister Fenton (Speaker 8) summarized HB 84 safety requirements, which include a panic-alert device for teachers that must connect to an answering/dispatch service (PSAP). The district invested federal and state grant funds (including a roughly $1,800,000 state safety grant) and district dollars and was about 60% through installations using an Audio Enhancement system. “We’ve already invested over $5,000,000 and audio enhancement is the system we use and they are not one of the approved vendors,” Fenton said. The state later completed procurement and identified four approved vendors, leaving districts with installed systems that may not be on the approved list and creating a funding and compatibility dilemma.
Fenton said staff are exploring interoperability with an approved vendor (Raptor) and have engaged USBE safety leadership (Shantel Coda) for updates. He characterized the situation as “very unfortunate” and said multiple districts (including Davis and Jordan) face the same problem.
Fenton also described internal guardian training (about 30 interested people so far) and warned that proposed law changes would shift guardian training-cost responsibility to districts, which could affect budgets. On school resource officer (SRO) contracts, he reported law-enforcement partners asked the district to pay 100% of SRO costs — a change that would raise the district’s per-officer cost from about $88,000 to roughly $165,000.
Staff cited preliminary evidence that some security measures correlate with fewer inside-school incidents: reportable incidents for the first half of the school year were 56 (two years ago), 53 (last year), and 31 (this year). Trustees asked staff to keep pursuing vendor solutions, continue discussions with USBE safety leadership, and examine options (private security, guardians) and budget implications for SROs.