This is the School Officer Program Cost Calculator, designed to provide an estimate of the financial investment required for implementing the program in your school district. By inputting key parameters such as the number of campuses and desired number of school officers, this calculator will generate a customized cost estimate. It serves as a helpful tool to evaluate the potential costs associated with implementing the School Officer Program, assisting you in making informed decisions regarding the safety and security of your school community.
Sydney ISD School Officer Program Cost Calculator
Texas Defense Force Security research has determined the following details about your school district. If these do not match your current figures, please adjust. The document will be re-calculated based on the updated figures.
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Texas school campuses are now required to maintain at least one armed security officer is present during regular school hours and for the purposes of this document, we assume it is 7A-4P - a 9-hour day (acceptable in TX.O.C. 1701 and 1702, even without breaks). With 1 campuses, at minimum, you will need 1 armed security officers (one per campus) during those regular school hours. This is what it will cost to meet the mandate requirements, assuming you're paying a median wage for a private security (Level 3) officer, or School Resource Officer (SRO). We will compare these figures to those from the School Officer Program below.
- Level 3 Private Security Officer
- $33,337 (1 * $33,337)
- School Resource Officer
- $59,077 (1 * $59,077)
What Can You Afford?
Without touching the $15,000 per campus, the state has provided your school district with enough funds to support 0 Level 3 Commissioned Security Officers or 0 School Resource Officers. Unlike our School Officer Program, traditional security companies and SRO assignments don't make financial sense.
Budget Underruns
HB3 is funded by HB11 at $10 per student. This means that your armed security budget is insufficient to cover the actual costs to meet the demands of the HB3 mandate. You need between $33,337 and $59,077, but you only have $1,230. You will be underfunded in an amount between $32,107 and $57,847. Even taking into consideration the $15,000 per campus grant offered by the state, a grant which may not be given again next year, your unfunded expense would still be between $17,107 and $42,847. Sadly, these are the numbers chosen by the legislature and signed into law by Governor Abbott.
The Numbers Speak for Themselves
Per HB3, you need a minimum of 1 armed security officers during regular school hours. The state did not fund that requirement. Our program is a logical solution.
- Private Security - Level 3
- Number Paid for by HB11: 0
- School Resource Officer (SRO)
- Number Paid for by HB11: 0
- TXDF School Officer Program
- Number Paid for by HB11: 1
How Many Volunteers do I Need?
That's a tough number to nail down. Of course, the state mandates 1 per campus during regular school hours. Having a single volunteer per campus is asking a lot of someone. Benefits to the volunteer are insurance, training, and licensing, and maybe equipment if that's in your budget. You're asking someone to commit to an unpaid full-time job, which will get old pretty quick. Our recommendation is a minimum of 6 volunteers per campus, and optimally 12 per campus. This ensures no volunteer is asked to work more than a full day each week with an additional body to cover absenses. If you can afford 12 for each campus, each volunteer needs only a 1/2 day per week. Keeping the volunteer time requirements minimal will greatly help in retention and prevent burnout. It's an obligation they can more easily swallow. Even at these numbers, the cost for 2 years of a single SRO salary is greater than training 12 volunteers ($118,154 vs $14,760). Even a paid private security salary times 2 years ($66,676) doesn't even come close to beating (or even meeting) our program cost.
TXDF and the School Officer Program
There are plenty of pages on our website describing our volunteer program. Please, feel free to browse and ask questions about any aspect of the program. Our offer to you is a simple $1,230 per officer to cover training, licensing, and insurance. That amount covers the cost of training, licensing, and insuring a volunteer with a 2-year commitment. The funding provided by the state would cover training and licensing for 1 Level 3/4 Commissioned Security / Personal Protection Officers. Our officers are volunteers; not just the officers we want to recruit for this program, but ALL TXDF officers are volunteers. Our great state is full of patriots. In our experience, they are ready and eager to fill this role.
