School Safety Budget Ax: A Hometown Example

  

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Photo by Brett Coomer Houston Chronicle

Deputy Constable Mark McGinnis prepares to direct traffic outside Galena Park High School on Friday. He has been stationed at the school for 15 years.

Schools and parents across the nation have been worried about state budget shortfalls and the effect on school security.

Most of us have been fearful that final decisions would come down to losing teachers vs. losing money spent on security measures.

Unfortunately in Houston, Raptor's hometown, the budget ax fell in yet another direction- local county contracts supplementing so-called "campus cops." 

Two Harris County constables recently canceled their security contracts with several area school districts, leaving the districts scrambling for a fix to cover the end of this school year and beyond.

Two of the districts reimburse the county for 80 percent of the $91,000 cost of a deputy's salary, benefits and equipment. The full cost of the deputies come out of the constables' budgets, and the reimbursements from the school districts go into the county coffers.

While some districts will hire their own police forces, most have no way to cover the cost of doing that, especially with their own budget cuts to consider.

Read more about this Houston story at the link below, and tell us what you think!

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7515906.html