South Carolina

Officers in every South Carolina school would cost millions

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Educators and law enforcement all agree the best thing to do to improve safety in South Carolina schools is to have an armed police officer in every school.

But they also agree any solution is going to cost at least tens of millions of dollars.

A House subcommittee discussed six different school safety proposals Wednesday - from armed officers to requiring every school to have an employee monitoring surveillance cameras when children are in the building to putting metal detectors at each school.

"Everything we're talking about is helpful and needed. But all of it costs money," South Carolina Sheriff's Association Executive Director Jarrod Bruder said.

Bruder, Education Superintendent Molly Spearman and State Law Enforcement Division Chief Mark Keel all told lawmakers their first priority is armed officers.

About half of South Carolina's more than 1,200 schools have armed officers, with a greater proportion in middle and high schools. To put them in all schools could cost around $60 million in the first year, Keel said.

Gov. Henry McMaster had asked lawmakers to put $5 million for school police officers into the budget before a shooting killed 17 students and staff members at a Florida high school in February. He has since said the state should find whatever money is needed to make children safe.

The House passed its spending plan last week without that money, but the Senate has yet to take up the spending bills.

Along with supporting the idea of armed officers, most of the people testifying before lawmakers Wednesday also said the state needs to provide more mental health help in schools.

"When a teacher identifies a young man or a young woman as being in trouble, we need to act," said Tom Dobbins, chairman of the Board of Trustees for Anderson School District 4.

Dobbins' school district includes Townville Elementary School, where police said a 14-year-old former student shot and killed a first-grader on the playground in September 2016.

The shooting led the district to make further security improvements at all its schools, including adding electronic gates to block public access to bus entrances - a direct response to how investigators said the shooter drove his father's pickup truck onto the school's campus. That money had to be taken from the classroom, Dobbins said.

"I beg of you to please mandate with funding," Dobbins said.

Rep. Phillip Lowe asked Keel and Spearman if they would give up any money from their budgets for extra officers for schools, then the Florence Republican spoke in support of his bill arming a small number of teachers or other school staff in a pilot program.

"It took 17 minutes for law enforcement to get there," Lowe said, citing the response time to the Townville Elementary School shooting.

Rep. Wendell Gilliard said the state finds solutions to other problems that aren't as important as saving the lives of children all the time.

"Money is not a factor," the Charleston Democrat said. "These good people find money all the time and this is to protect our children."

There was less interest in other ideas. Experts said it would cost about $17 million an hour to have officers work metal detectors at all schools.

Several speakers also questioned if it was wise to have one employee monitor 200 cameras or more in large schools and whether those surveillance cameras should be put in classrooms too.

No one spoke in favor of allowing teachers to have guns.

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