Bargaining rights: Ruling on school police will cost taxpayers

Now that a District Court judge has ruled school district police must be afforded all the collective bargaining rights and privileges as other police departments under state law, perhaps it is high time for the Clark County School Board to rethink how it maintains security in our public schools.

The Clark County School District Police Department started in 1967 as a division of the Maintenance Department, basically serving as night watchmen at school facilities and evening events. The Legislature in 1971 classified these employees as peace officers.

Today the outfit has grown into a department with 160 sworn officers with arrest powers and 40 civilians whose base salaries and benefits cost the district more than $15 million a year -- increasing nearly 20 percent in the past four years alone. It has a detective bureau, training bureau, communications bureau, fingerprint unit, records unit and dispatch center. All these employees must be provided office space, equipment and police cars at an untold expense.

Two years ago the board tried to rein in overtime for police officers that was allowing them to hike their pay by 25 percent on average. In the 2007-08 school year, police officer Christopher Law netted $113,000 in overtime, increasing his total pay to $180,000, while Anthony Cooke pulled in $106,000 in overtime, upping his pay to $160,000.

This is the same department that apparently has done little for an entire year about a school district employee accused of using a school computer to engage in lewd acts on the Internet.

In his opinion District Judge Allan Earl wrote, "Long gone are the days when security officers worked out of the School Maintenance Department," noting the officers' arrest powers.

The school police collective bargaining contract expired in 2007. The judge's ruling apparently gives the school cops access to expedited arbitration.

Considering the huge cost to the district -- a cost that will doubtlessly climb even higher once the arbitrators are given access to the coffers -- in maintaining this separate police agency at a time the district is facing looming budget cuts because of plummeting tax revenue, is this expense really necessary?

The board should consider whether it is feasible to disband this department and go out to bid for a private security firm instead. Private security could guard the facilities and detain miscreants until police can arrive. The money saved could be spent on the district's mission: educating children.