Riverhead schools, town clash over cost of safety officers

As Riverhead students return to school Thursday, the future of two police officers stationed at the district’s middle and high schools remains up in the air.

A two-year agreement between the Riverhead Central School District and Riverhead Town to share the cost of providing school resource officers, or SROs, expired over the summer, leaving the two sides at odds over who should pick up the tab.

The issue has been percolating since the school district budgeted about $200,000 for the officers in its $218.9 million 2026-27 spending plan approved in May.

The dispute came to a head at a Town Board work session last week, when school officials warned the current funding gap could ultimately leave the district with one fewer officer.

“Our offer has been, since the beginning of the summer, to pay 50% of the salaries for the two SRO officers … if the town wasn’t willing to do that, then we would go to paying 50% of the full benefits for just one SRO,” said Greg Gillen, counsel to the school district and an attorney with Guercio & Guercio. “We’d have one SRO less in the school district.”

The two sides agreed to station two armed Riverhead police officers in the schools after a series of security incidents, including when a student sprayed another with pepper spray, four children were called a racial slur at a football game, and a Riverhead High School student was stabbed on his way home, renewed calls for SROs in 2023.

For 2024-25, the Riverhead Board of Education agreed to pay 50% of the cost to employ one of the two SROs, an estimated $88,000 total, leaving the town to cover roughly $264,000 of the estimated $352,000 cost, according to previous reporting. For 2025-26, the school district and town split the cost evenly — about $176,000 each.

Riverhead Police Chief Ed Frost said the expired agreement included “stringent guidelines” requiring officers to be at Riverhead High School and Riverhead Middle School each school day.

“Even if they’re on vacation, we have to cover them,” the chief said. “All the other municipalities, they do not have such an agreement, and the SROs bounce around through many different school districts, where there’s not a mandatory presence at the facility.”

Officers Eric Cohen and Kaley Castantine were welcomed as SROs in the district’s high school and middle school in July 2024. Over time, the Riverhead police officers became familiar, approachable faces — creating secret handshakes with students, giving tips about what to do during a traffic stop and helping students develop a better understanding of police officers’ role in the community.

Cheryl Pedisich was the interim superintendent of the Riverhead Central School District when the agreement was finalized. Although he was not part of the early SRO conversations, current Superintendent Robert Hagan, now entering his second year in the role, stressed that the district wants to work with the town on a solution to keep the program going.

“What I can tell you is that the SROs are amazing people, they work tremendously well with our kids, our community, with our faculty,” Mr. Hagan said. “Presence is everything.”

Still, board members questioned why the school district had not budgeted enough to continue the previous arrangement without piercing its tax cap.

“I just don’t understand how you’re willing to compromise safety over that,” Councilman Kenneth Rothwell said at the Aug. 27 work session. “The commitment was that safety and priority are the top components of any school district’s policy.”

Mr. Gillen defended the school district’s decision, saying RCSD has faced “incredible financial stress” and budgets only what it can afford while staying within its tax cap.

He said other East End municipal police forces and local school districts “are in lock step” when it comes to student safety, and called Riverhead’s approach of requiring the district to pay for the officers “unheard of.”

“I think it’s shameful that we are talking about paying for SRO services — if the school district had the authority to employ its own school and its own officers, it would do that,” Mr. Gillen said. “It can’t do that. It’s at your mercy.” 

Councilman Bob Kern brushed off the comparison to other East End schools, stating their school budgets are significantly less than Riverhead’s, and argued the town was never expected to subsidize the SRO program beyond the original two-year agreement.

“For us, safety is absolutely important,” Mr. Kern said. “When we first did this, we knew the school budget at the time did not address SROs and it was a commitment made to us that in the future they wouldn’t do that.”

With roughly 1,400 students from Riverside and Flanders attending the Riverhead Central School District, according to Mr. Kern, he suggested officials look at how Southampton Town might be able to contribute financially, given that those families do not pay Riverhead town taxes that support the Riverhead Police Department.

Mr. Gillen said Phillips Avenue Elementary School, which is in Riverside, has an SRO provided by Southampton Town Police.

Board members also raised concerns about Riverhead Town taxpayers whose children attend other school districts. Mr. Rothwell and Councilwoman Denise Merrifield emphasized how those living in the Shoreham-Wading River and Eastport-South Manor school districts should not have to pay additional taxes for Riverhead’s SROs.

“You’re asking them to have your school district included in their town taxes,” Ms. Merrifield said. “That’s not fair to our residents. We’ve pierced our tax cap twice already…you made sure that your budget didn’t go over, but you don’t care whether ours does or not.”

The tense back-and-forth continued, with Councilwoman Joann Waski questioning why a district with a budget exceeding $200 million could not allocate more money to the SRO program.

“You still have your assistant, to the assistant, to the assistant of an assistant working within the school district,” Ms. Waski said. “That’s more important than the safety of your students.”

“That’s a gross mischaracterization,” Mr. Gillen replied. 

She also questioned why legal counsel was brought in for the negotiation — a contrast to the “friendly conversation” officials had two years ago, the councilwoman said.

This is not the first time RCSD has used school resource officers on campus. The district allocated funds in the 2018-19 budget to hire Riverhead Police Officer Byron Perez as an SRO.

For now, the dispute will likely not affect the SROs being on campus when the first bell rings on Thursday. Officials talked about possibly putting a temporary agreement in place to keep the program going for now, but emphasized the need to establish a more “comprehensive” full contract for the rest of the school year. 

“We’re asking you to reconsider what your offer has been,” Supervisor Jerry Halpin said. “We can decide, together, if we want to move with the old contract, so the children are safe … beyond just safety, what they bring to those schools, what we’ve all witnessed, what you know they do, is invaluable.”