Greenwich Will Look To Reconfigure Police Patrols At Schools For FY24

GREENWICH, CT — Greenwich will look to mitigate the cost of enhanced police patrols at the town's 15 public schools by reconfiguring those patrols for fiscal year 2024.

Following the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas last spring, Greenwich implemented enhanced police coverage at Greenwich Public Schools with a police officer at each school from May to June 2022.

The Greenwich Police Department then received an interim appropriation of $682,000 last September/October, so five officers could conduct roving patrols around the district. Each officer was responsible for five schools.

These officers, however, did not respond to routine non-school calls for their service, and their coverage was overtime-based, said First Selectman Fred Camillo during his budget presentation earlier this week.

According to operations plans for FY24, the GPD is recommending the addition of five officers to the department's end strength.

"The new program of providing five police officers on each school day for security of all the GPS campuses reflects an added strain on Department staffing," operations documents say. "This initiative is currently being filled on an overtime basis. The leadership of the Department has concerns that this arrangement will result in adverse effects on staffing availability for regular patrol assignments and extra duty assignments covering road construction jobs."

Maintaining the current Board of Education police patrols costs $697,000 for FY24, Camillo said.

In order to mitigate expenses, the town reviewed several options such as eliminating school patrols, which Camillo said was not going to happen; reducing other police services; or making adjustments to school patrols.

Therefore, Camillo noted in his presentation that his budget includes $418,000 for security patrols for three officers, who would cover five schools each.

"We think that's a reasonable approach given budget constraints," Camillo said. "Staffing the BOE security patrols on an OT basis is unsustainable. A longer-term solution is needed for fiscal year 2025."

Camillo said the town and school officials are already thinking about what that longer-term solution might look like.

"At the end of the day, I will always make sure our schools and our facilities are always protected," Camillo said.

The Board of Estimate and Taxation Budget Committee will begin budget hearings next week.