Additional Funding Announced for Enfield Schools' Security Upgrades

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy announced the disbursement of $16 million in state funds for Connecticut school districts that made security improvements to schools in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting in December 2012.

Included in the $16 million, which are part of the state's Gun Violence Prevention and Children's Safety Act, is $51,125 for Enfield.

The funds serve as reimbursement for funds spent on security upgrade, and come in addition to the announcement of $240,000 in state reimbursement funds for Enfield announced in September.

The news comes about a month before the one-year anniversary of the Dec. 14, Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings and almost two months after Malloy announced nearly $5 million in the first phase of School Security Grant Program reimbursements for security improvements made in 36 school districts that applied. 

The grant program was part of the "Gun Violence Prevention and Children’s Safety Act." 

"This law allows us to reimburse municipalities and get resources out to the cities and towns that have begun work to modernize their school security infrastructure and ramp up their safety programs and procedures in their school buildings."

That brings the total funds allocated in 2013 for school security enhancements to $21 million, working toward making "Connecticut schools safer," Malloy said.

Across the state, the funds will help pay for security improvements to building infrastructures, such as the installation of "surveillance cameras," "bullet-proof glass," "electric locks," "buzzers and card entry systems," and "panic alarms," Malloy said.

Malloy said the additional funding was made possible because the state was "able to secure an additional $6 million in state bond funds to support all schools that applied in Round 1." He told multiple media outlets after his address that the State Bond Commission does not have to approve those funds. 

In total, state reimbursements for school security projects will now benefit 111 school districts and 604 schools, Malloy said. 

"The bottom line is we will never be able to prevent every act that someone could potentially perpetrate in our tows and our cities and in our schools, but we can and we need to and we are obligated to make those systems, those schools as safe as we possibly can," Malloy said. 

Malloy said he expects additional funds will be made available for school security improvements in the future. 

"I know that this period of time, this next month, a fair amount of discussion will take place about what happened and what our response to that is. I can tell you I feel that the state has responded admirably and that we're leading in the area of school security again," Malloy said. 

Twenty children and six educators died in the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Dec. 14, 2012. Malloy closed his address with remembrance of the victims and well-wishes for their families. 

"But let us not forget the lives of those lost on that day," he added. "Let us keep them in our memories and say our prospective prayers on behalf of the teachers, administrators and students and also a special prayer for the parents, fathers, mothers and loved ones of those who perished."

Malloy said he understands the importance of this funding to municipalities as someone who previously served as an elected school board member for a year prior to becoming mayor of Stamford in 1995 and again during his last four years as mayor. 

"I take their needs and the needs of local communities pretty seriously," Malloy said. "Some of this stuff can be done pretty quickly and in some cases municipalities were already spending money and they need to get it back."

Patch Local Editor Jessie Sawyer contributed to this report.