SAUGUS — Town Manager Scott Crabtree said during a Finance Committee meeting that money has been set aside within the town’s fiscal year 2025 budget to allow the school district to utilize the Police Department to investigate students who might be living outside of the district or violating truancy laws.
As Finance Committee members met to continue their review of the budget, Crabtree said that money has been allocated for school administrators to fund the Police Department in case its officers need to work overtime to investigate concerns regarding students.
“We have money put aside for the schools to access any of the police officers if they need to work overtime for truancy issues, any of the kids that they feel don’t belong in the district,” Crabtree said.
Crabtree said that the money should be available for the school district to use when and if its administrators see fit.
“We don’t want them to not have the money to do that,” he said.
According to Crabtree, the Police Department has recently been in talks with Superintendent Michael Hashem, who is “interested in pursuing that.”
“For every student that doesn’t belong in the district that’s in our district, we’re paying for that. That’s coming from our budget,” Crabtree said. “It’s taxpayer money, and I think we should be a little more diligent.”
Crabtree said that the amount of money set aside for the district to pay for the department’s overtime is approximately $40,000.
