Mayor: New Tax Could Put Cops in Schools

Members of the Stow Safety Task Force briefly talked about the idea of a levy or some kind of ballot issue as a means to hire full-time police officers to staff each of the Stow-Munroe Falls Schools Thursday.

Stow Law Director Brian Reali read a statement from Stow Mayor Sara Drew to the task force — Drew was in Columbus Thursday — in which the mayor broached the idea of using a ballot issue to provide a revenue source to pay for the hiring of officers specifically to staff the community's seven school buildings.

"The city of Stow does not possess the financial reserves to hire officers that would be needed to provide security in school buildings on a permanent basis," Drew said.

Drew suggested that one of the task force's recommendations might be to Stow City Council to consider a ballot issue tax for later this year.

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Reali said that as the city's law director he would be willing to argue the importance of a tax to hire new police officers with the community.

"I support increased police presence at all the schools," Reali said. "I believe additional funding is also necessary. As a parent, that’s something I’m willing to pay for."

Stow-Munroe Falls Schools Superintendent Russell Jones said the school district, since the Sandy Hook shootings, has hired off-duty police officers to provide a presence in the buildings.

"There’s a big dollar number put on that to get where we are today," Jones said.

He said there are other security measures the district could take, including adding shatter-proof glass, more security cameras and additional training for staff.

"I think the best deterrent is, you see a black-and-white sitting in front of one of our schools with an armed, trained police officer … I think that’s the best action that we can put in place over the long term," Jones said. "We hope to make that part of what we do moving forward."

Both Stow Police Chief Louis Dirker and Munroe Falls Police Chief Rick Myers said their departments would need to hire more cops to provide that service without increasing the existing burden on the police forces.

Myers said the Munroe Falls department would need four more officers, and Dirker said Stow would need a minimum of six new cops or as many as 10 "depending on how you want to staff the schools. It's quite labor intensive."

He said the Stow officers who have volunteered to work for the district since Sandy Hook have been taxed by the extra shift that service mandates.

Also at Thursday's meeting the task force listened to a presentation from University of Akron professor Dave Licate about available safety training resources from various public and private agencies regarding school threats.

The presentation coincided in part with a training grant Myers said the task force plans to apply for with Summit County.

"Other than just adding police officers to the schools there are a lot of other things we need to do," Reali said.

Correction: this article was updated at 11:42 a.m. to correct the title of Dave Licate.