An Open Letter to all Cortlandt Residents Concerning Lakeland School District SRO Funding.

At one time, the Town did split 1/3 of the cost for an SRO for a Yorktown Police Officer (not a County Officer) that only served Lakeland Copper Beech Middle School. The Town stopped funding the 1/3 cost of the SRO after providing significant notice to the School District, since the cost of an SRO is the responsibility of each School District. The Town does not pay for an SRO for any other school districts that serve students from the Town of Cortlandt. This is why you pay separate school taxes. The Lakeland Central School District’s website specifically states that “[d]district students live in six different towns.

To the best of the Town’s knowledge, besides the Town of Yorktown, the Town of Cortlandt is the only other municipality who ever contributed for the cost of a Yorktown Police Officer as an SRO-- Somers,Carmel, Philipstown, and Putnam Valley do not contribute. We note that the presentation made by the Yorktown Police Chief to the Lakeland School Board never mentioned this during his  presentation.

To conclude:  All the other 5 School Districts in the Town pay for their own SRO’s. It is unfair for ALL Town residents in other parts of Cortlandt to contribute towards the cost of an SRO serving only one school out of the five school districts that residents from the Town of Cortlandt attend. Cortlandt residents that attend Copper Beach already support the SRO there via their school taxes. Cortlandt residents in the Henrick Hudson School district support the SRO there. They shouldn’t also pay for Copper Beach, and vice versa. Fairness to all requires each school district to fund their own staff via school taxes in their respective districts.

-Richard H. Becker, MD

Town Supervisor