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Committee debates how two school resource officers should be funded across three towns
Summary
Members argued over whether Southwick should keep paying an SRO directly or whether the second officer should be part of the district operational budget and apportioned across the three towns; legal guidance was cited that a town must place a separate warrant article to donate SRO services to the district.
A debate over who should pay for two school resource officers dominated the committee's budget conversation.
Robert Stevenson, chair of the Southwick-Tolland-Granville Regional School Committee, said the district must follow its regional agreement and apportion costs among the three towns rather than allow one town to bear more of the cost informally. "We are in a regional school district and we are supposed to divide the expenses amongst the three towns according to the assessment and the setup of the regional school agreement," he said.
Several committee members and town officials raised concerns that Southwick had long funded the first SRO entirely and some town officials asked that Southwick keep an officer on its payroll. Committee members said that legal advice from Attorney Duper indicates a town cannot simply donate an SRO's services to the district without an explicit warrant article and a vote of that town's taxpayers. One committee member summarized the legal guidance: a town must present a separate warrant article for the voters to approve donating the SRO service.
Those supporting keeping the SRO included members who emphasized student safety and argued that a second officer was needed: "Keep her safe, our students and staff safe," a committee member said when recalling the original rationale. Others pressed for clarity about whether moving an SRO into the district's operational budget was consistent with the regional apportionment and whether it raised fairness concerns for towns that would pay more under a reallocation.
The committee did not resolve the issue at the meeting but agreed to seek additional legal and procedural clarification and invited further discussions with select board members from the three towns ahead of any formal budget vote.
