The Fulton County school board is preparing to spend more than $400,000 in sales tax money to install a locked-door buzzer entry system in all of the county’s public schools.
The board is scheduled to vote to authorize the work at its Oct. 15 board meeting.
The extra security measures will cost $426,765 and will be paid with proceeds from the county’s one-percent local option, education sales tax. Kratos Public Safety & Security Solutions Inc. is slated to do the work.
Fulton County Superintendent Robert Avossa said the plans grew out of school safety conversations over the past year.
“We looked at how we could improve and make our schools safer,” Avossa said. “With their video and audio monitoring capabilities, these access systems will give our schools an added layer of security.”
Installation is to begin in November, with elementary schools as the first priority. The district expects to have all schools outfitted by the end of the school year, school system spokeswoman Susan Hale said.
Metro school districts have been ramping up spending on school security measures, even as falling property tax revenues and state money have forced them to cut back on other purchases and federal grant money for safe school initiatives has evaporated.
Earlier this year, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution found that eight metro school districts collectively spent more than $28 million on school security last year. Most of the money went to support a growing fleet of armed school resource officers, mostly in middle and high schools.
Districts also have heavily invested in technology, such as cameras, and hardware, such as fences and metal locks. Marietta city schools recently "panic buttons" in classrooms. In Cobb County, school board members voted in February to spend $900,000 in sales tax money to outfit elementary school entryways with buzzers. The district first started putting access control systems in its schools and other facilities in 2004.
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