Parents and children can expect crossing guards in the city to soon come back after city officials cut the program over the summer in an effort to trim spending and help close a multi-million dollar budget deficit.
Orange County Supervisors Vicente Sarmiento and Don Wagner have also pledged to help fund the program as the city’s slated to ask voters for a 0.5% sales tax increase this November.
[Read: Orange Asks Voters to Raise Taxes To Bail Out City Budget]
Orange City Council members voted unanimously to reinstate the crossing guard program by outsourcing to a third party after residents urged officials to reinstate the program.
“I need you to understand as a parent, as a teacher, as a resident, these are our most vulnerable and we need to look out for them,” said Councilwoman Ana Gutierrez to her fellow council at Tuesday’s city council meeting.
She and Councilman Denis Bilodeau opposed ending the program when doing budget cuts in June in an attempt to fix their spending deficit.
Once the school year began last month, parents like Scott Resnick who has a first grader, quickly noticed the absence of their usual crossing guards.
“It was pretty noticeable from day one that she wasn’t there,” Resnick said in a phone interview on Wednesday noting that the usual first day of school chaos was more apparent without the crossing guard helping keep the flow of traffic.
Resnick said he was happy that the city recognized the priority of having a crossing guard program and the willingness to move quickly to get guards on the streets.
Councilman John Gyllenhammer, who was not present at the meeting but phoned in, said he spoke to Orange County Supervisor Don Wagner who said he was willing to help support the crossing guard program funding.
Carlos Valenzuela, a policy advisor to Orange County Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento, said they are looking for county funding to help cover a portion of the program.
“We would like to be supportive of the City of Orange during this challenging financial time. We know you have to make some difficult choices in prioritizing services in the city’s budget and we would like to offer help with this particular item,” Valenzuela said.
The exact costs were not available, but will be up for a discussion at a later date to accept it.
The quote given to the city for 16 crossing guards by the crossing guard company is $377,971 which amounts to $32.81 an hour.
However, last year the city paid $254,272 for the program which was paying roughly $17 to $19 an hour for 19 positions.
The council said they will fund up to that amount to the crossing guard company.
City Manager Tom Kisela said they’ll take a look at other programs that may be cut to cover the cost, but did not give specifics.
The private crossing guard company, All City Management Services, also covers cities like Newport Beach, Yorba Linda and others, according to a staff report.
Police Chief Dan Adams said some of the issues in the previous crossing guard program like low pay and shift hours made it difficult to retain employees.
Some residents argued that the online job postings weren’t enough, pointing to people who may be interested in the position like elderly people, who they said likely don’t visit the city website regularly.
Mayor Dan Slater and Councilman Jon Dumitru criticized the school district for not paying for a portion of the crossing guard cost.
“There’s one person that is not at the table and they need to be. The school district needs to step up and help us out with some money. That’s all we’re asking,” Slater said. “I hope they’re listening to us. We need their participation.”
“It would be great if we could have some co-sharing with the school board, but then we also need to ask Anaheim, Santa Ana and Villa Park which are also part of the Orange Unified School District as well,” Councilwoman Gutierrez said.
Dumitru also mentioned there are grants the city could apply to for help with the cost of the program, but he said if the school district wasn’t on board with it they wouldn’t be able to apply.
In an email Wednesday morning, Hana Brake, spokesperson for Orange Unified School District, said officials are examining how to help fund the program.
“While we have not yet received a formal proposal from the City regarding the crossing guard program, we remain fully committed to working together on viable solutions. This includes exploring and supporting potential grant funding opportunities to enhance public safety,” reads the email.
The council also said they will look into a separate volunteer-based program.
Gigi Gradillas is a Voice of OC Tracy Wood Reporting Fellow. Contact her at gigi.gradillas@gmail.com or on Twitter @gigigradillas.
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