Mayor discusses school security problems
TRENTON >> Six city elementary schools were left without security guards Tuesday after City Hall accepted district officials at their word that they didn’t need Trenton Police officers to fill in for security guards who had walked off the job following a contract dispute.
Mayor Reed Gusciora appeared at a news conference Tuesday to discuss the latest chapter in an escalating controversy, forcing the city to deplete its “already thin” police ranks to fill in the gap at district schools.
“At this point, to ensure the safety of our children, the city of Trenton is assuming control of security for the schools,” the mayor said of the city takeover.
At least 22 police officers have been dispatched to schools city-wide to manage the unfolding security guard crisis, prompted by a contract dispute between the district former and current security providers.
Now, city attorneys have intervened in the ongoing legal scrap between Patriot Security Group and Motivated Security Services, as city leaders held a meeting with district officials and other prominent stakeholders later in the day to discuss where to go from here.
Janice Williams of the Trenton Education Association, which represents 1,100 district educators, said her organization was not invited to the meeting.
The mayor wasn’t sure whether Superintendent Fred McDowell was the one who passed along the edict from school officials who contacted Trenton Police late Thursday night to “call off” officers from showing up to at least a half-dozen district schools following last week’s security guard walkout.
The walkout has extended into this week, disrupting efforts to ensure students, teacher and staff are safe, as the two companies duke it out in court.
The mayor said school officials informed Trenton Police that security would “be in place” and there was no need for them to come.
“There was a misunderstanding about whether there’d be privatized security guards filling in the elementary schools,” Gusciora said. “That did not take place . ... The buck stops here. The city of Trenton will step up to the plate.
The mayor was left to address why he trusted district officials following what the TEA has called a track record of reactionary neglect, but he disagreed that district officials can’t be trusted.
The teachers union has pointed to the fact that district officials have known about and been involved in the security firm litigation for months ahead of Friday’s walkout, which came the same day of a phonein bomb threat at Trenton Central High School’s visual and performing arts school.
The teachers union and one city councilman called on McDowell to resign as school chief at Monday’s board meeting, claiming the security flap was another indication McDowell is unfit to continue to lead Trenton Public Schools.
The mayor declined to address any issues related to McDowell’s job security.
McDowell walked out of Tuesday’s presser once one of his most outspoken critics, Williams, walked in.
“I’m glad he walked out as he walked in because I’m his nemesis,” Williams said after the news conference. “I’m going to disturb his conscience every time I have the opportunity to disturb his conscience because he has not done his due diligence in this district making the kind of money he makes, waking out of here with $24,000 in merit pay when he put out children in a crisis situation.”
McDowell, who makes more than $196,000 in annual salary after the board quietly bumped up his pay once the state relaxed a statewide superintendent salary cap last year, has been under constant attack since he requested another nearly $25,000 in merit pay educational stakeholders contend he doesn’t deserve.
His critics have used the dispute between Motivated Security Services, which has provided security to the district since 2015, and Patriot Security Group to bolster their claims that McDowell has failed the district.
Motivated Security Services sued Patriot Security Group after it lost out to the rival firm on the $2.5 million contract.
The Board of Education voted to approve Patriot Security Group as the district’s new security provider in August despite being put on notice by Motivated’s attorneys that the company had uncovered alleged misconduct by one of its employees, Gary Slodowski, which made the bidding process unfair.
Motivate claimed in an Aug. 30 lawsuit – naming the company co-owners and the BOE – that Slodowksi was a co-founder at Patriot Security Group at the same time he was working for Motivated.
Motivated officials claimed that Slodowski purposely sabotaged the bid he prepared and submitted on behalf of Motivated for the district’s security contract because he was actually trying to steer the contract to the rival company he owned.
A judge issued a temporary injunction following an emergency hearing earlier this year that effectively halted the district from making any payments to
Patriot as part of the $2.5 million contract.
The parties signed a consent order last month that enabled the district to make partial payment to Patriot so the company could compensate employees.
But the agreement expired last week, and the school district has been unable to pay out any more than the $300,000 previously shelled out to Patriot so the company could make payroll.
The board voted at Monday night’s meeting to rescind the contract with Patriot and award it to motivated as part of what board counsel James Rolle Jr. described as a proposed settlement.
The district will pay Motivated more than $2.4 million to provide security through June 30, 2019, in addition to the money it has already spent on the contract with Patriot.
The BOE approved $25,000 to pay for overtime costs to have Trenton Police stationed at district schools through Nov. 30, while Motivated prepares to take over security responsibilities starting next week.
The security guard fiasco has extended the city, which city law director John Morelli spelled out in court papers Tuesday asking a judge to re-tailor the temporary restraint order.
The TRO, Morelli wrote, has not only impacted Trenton Public Schools but has “has had a profound effect on the city of Trenton and its police force, including but not limited to deploying police officers on an emergency, leaving the remainder of the city with a lack of police protection.”
The city wouldn’t provide the number of Trenton Police officers sent to district schools, but acknowledged at least one was dispatched to the district’s 22 schools.
That number represents nearly onetenth of the Trenton Police’s 285 sworn officers.
The security flap has also affected Patriot Security guard, many of them Trenton residents, who haven’t received their paychecks ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday.
The mayor said the district is expected to compensate the workers who still showed up to their jobs despite the walkout.
Williams felt the superintendent owed those guards an apology.
“He’s going to have a Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings,” she said. “Security guards aren’t going to be able to have a turkey and ham and all the trimmings on their table. Is he going to invite some of them to his home to partake as the pilgrims did with the Indians?”