148th GENERAL ASSEMBLY

FISCAL NOTE

Bill: HOUSE BILL NO. 96

sponsor: Representative Miro

DESCRIPTION: AN ACT TO AMEND TITLE 14 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO SILENT ALARM SYSTEMS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

ASSUMPTIONS:

1. This Act requires every public school building to be equipped with a silent alarm system capable of notifying local law enforcement of an emergency that may be manually activated from at least one location within the public school.

2. Based on information from the Department of Education, there are a total of 219 public school buildings among regular and vocational-technical school districts and charter schools. Of this amount, 6 school buildings meet the requirements of this Act and 2 of the buildings are scheduled to close at the end of this school year. As such, there are a total of 211 school buildings impacted by this Act.

3. Depending on the infrastructure needs of the school buildings, the estimated one-time cost per building to satisfy the provisions of this Act is expected to range between $500 to $1,500, which includes labor installation as well as the necessary hardware to install a panic button. This Fiscal Year 2015 budget includes $300,000 for School Safety Plans that could be used as a source of funding.

4. Ongoing monitoring costs are assumed to be absorbed within the existing cost of school building security systems given a large majority of public schools are equipped with security systems.

Cost:

Fiscal Year 2016: $105,500 to $316,500 for installation (state)

Fiscal Year 2017: $0

Fiscal Year 2018: $0

Office of Controller General (Amounts are shown in whole dollars)

May 04, 2015

MSJ:MSJ

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