The Village of Walden has approved a new agreement to provide a school resource officer (SRO) at Walden Elementary School for the upcoming school year. While it might have been a formality, a “substantial revision” added by the district prompted a debate among village trustees.
The Walden agreement, approved last year by the village board, calls for the school district to pay the village $54,280 per year to provide a police officer at the school for seven hours per day when school is in session. According to the contract, the village will provide a substitute if the regular SRO is not available. If no substitute is available, a Town of Montgomery Police Officer will serve as the substitute. Similar contracts also existed between the school district and other area police agencies: the Town of Montgomery, Village of Montgomery and Village of Maybrook Police Departments. The Town police provide service to the Valley Central High School and Middle School, Berea Elementary School and the East Coldenham Elementary School (through an inter-municipal agreement with the Town of Newburgh). Village of Montgomery Police provide SRO service to the Montgomery Elementary School, and Maybrook Police provide service to the Early Learning Center.
The “substantial revision” in the contract would allow the superintendent to unilaterally cancel the agreement under certain conditions.
“I don’t think there’s any issue with that. It’s not a power play,” said Walden Police Chief William Herlihy. “It’s a fail-safe built-in in the event of an incident and the village failed to make the necessary changes, they could terminate the contract.”
In short, the district could request that a SRO be replaced. If the village failed to do so, the contract could be terminated.
“The way I read this,” said Village Attorney Dave Donovan, “is if the superintendent doesn’t like the color of your hair, you’re out the door.”
Though he acknowledged that he was embellishing when describing hair color, the village attorney did share one concern.
“This is an income stream to pay some officers,” Donovan said. “If the superintendent decides, in their discretion, that they don’t want that SRO, then you still have an officer, but you’ve lost an income stream. That was the concern that I raised to the manager.”
Village Trustee Becky Pearson quizzed the police chief.
“Are you good with it?”
“I’m good with it,” he replied.
“You weren’t last year.”
“It’s a brand-new outfit. Now we’re in there,” Herlihy explained. “We’ve been through it. We’ve set up our system and now we’re running it smoothly.”
Mayor John Ramos was not concerned.
I commend the new district superintendent (Evette Avila), obviously she is new, first year just like this program is new. We shook off the cobwebs,” Ramos said. “The school district, specifically Walden Elementary School, can’t be more happier with the services we’ve been providing under your leadership. We have good officers and the superintendent’s discretion has to be based on lawful reason and with those reasons, we do have contractual items in the police contract for disciplinary issues and I know for a fact that you would not leave anybody in there that is not up to par. So I have no issue with the discretion and it’s based upon lawful reason. Period.”
The Walden Village Board approved the contract. The Valley Central School Board is expected to vote on all of the SRO agreements on August 7, according to Ellen McGoldrick, Valley Central School District Clerk. That school board meeting will also include a board retreat that is not open to the public.