Superintendent John Scavelli Jr. said SRO spending would increase to $500,000 in the 2018–2019 school year budget.
As the Evesham Township School District Board of Education continues crafting its 2018–2019 school year budget, the BOE has announced plans to double the amount of money the district will spend for its school resource officer program next year.
The announcement comes in the wake of the recent high school shooting in Parkland, Fla., where a gunman murdered 17 people and injured others.
The district spends approximately $250,000 on the school resource officer program that allows officers from the Evesham Township Police Department to provide daily security services for the district’s elementary and middle schools.
According to Superintendent John Scavelli Jr., the district plans to increase SRO spending to $500,000 starting with next year’s budget, which would affect the program starting in September.
Without providing specific details to the public due to security concerns, Scavelli said the doubling of the funding was enough to guarantee a resource officer for every school in the district.
Prior to the increase, the district’s proposed 2018–2019 school year budget was set to increase ETSD taxes by $51.29 for the average Evesham home assessed at $270,500.
With the increase in funding to the SRO program, Scavelli said homeowners would be paying about $7 on top of that.
However, Scavelli said the district would continue to make alterations to its budget through the board’s adoption of the tentative budget in March and the final adoption in early May.
In past years, the projected tax levies for ETSD budgets have typically decreased between the time district officials first announce figures in February and when the board adopts final budgets several months later.
“The next meeting when we come in for March, we’re going to have a list of adjustments — multiple changes that occurred since this was first developed,” Scavelli said. “It’s going to be plus this, minus that.”
In praising the increase to the SRO program, BOE president Joe Fisicaro Jr. said he was happy to see the cooperation between township officials and members of the district’s administration.
Fisicaro described the increase to the program’s funding as a “good starting ground” for what the district is doing to increase security.
“There is no quick answer for it,” Fisicaro said. “It’s something that we’re going to have to keep building on in time, and I look forward to being a part of that conversation and making sure that the educational value is never depleted and that the security of our children is up there at the forefront as well.”
Moving forward, Scavelli said district officials and the district’s architect have plans to meet with a representative from the Evesham Township Police Department to start reviewing the front entrances to district buildings to determine how the district could better fortify those locations.
Scavelli said the district also has plans to add a visitor management system at all schools next year that would require visitors to have their driver’s licenses scanned through a digital security system.
