ALBANY – The New York State Sheriffs’ Association is pushing for the provision of at least one armed school resource officer in every grade and high school throughout the state.
The association announced Thursday that it is calling on the state Legislature to include sufficient funding in the 2018 state budget to support such a measure, further stating that the safety of New York students and educators is a more than worthwhile expenditure.
“This will be an expensive undertaking,” said Wayne County Sheriff Barry Virts, President of the New York State Sheriffs’ Association, “but we owe it to our children, and their parents, to provide a safe place for education to take place.”
There are about 4,750 public schools and nearly 2,000 private schools educating students in grades K through 12 in the state. The association estimates that the cost of this proposal would be roughly equivalent to that of adding one teacher to each of these schools.
The total cost of such a program, when factoring in both salary and benefits, could run well over half a billion dollars.
Locally, the Post Journal is reporting that Chautauqua County Sheriff Joe Gerace supports the proposal.
It should be noted that a school resource officer was assigned to the school in Broward County Florida where last week’s mass shooting took place. However, the officer was unable to stop the suspect from killing 17 people. It’s since been learned that the officer did not respond to the threat when first notified and he has since resigned from his job.
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