School Officials to Cut Security Force : Education: Long Beach police will be expected to assume more responsibility for safety, district officials say.

Although overwhelmed by vandalism, school officials are reducing the number of campus security guard jobs by nearly three-fourths to save money, and they want police to help protect school buildings.

The number of security guard jobs is being reduced from 11 to three in the next couple of years as part of a significant reorganization in campus security. The plan would also alter a unique program that pairs police officers with school truancy officers.

Cuts in the security staff will save $400,000 annually. The Long Beach Police Department is expected to assume more responsibility for school safety, district officials said this week.

The Long Beach Unified School District had 11 security guards patrolling 87 schools and other district buildings 24 hours a day. The number of guards is already too small to handle skyrocketing vandalism, but the district cannot afford to hire more, officials said.

Ron Bennett, the district’s deputy superintendent for business, said: “We have been ineffective at protecting property at all of these locations, and it’s prohibitive to add enough people to do that. We just have to rely on the Police Department to do that.”

The security guards’ main task is to protect property, but they’re losing the battle against vandalism. In 1987, vandalism cost the district $702,701. In 1988, that figure doubled. Last year, it doubled again, costing the district about $3 million.

“It’s not ideal that we’re reducing the numbers,” Bennett conceded. “But if you look at it, you could also say that 11 people for a school district is nothing.”

District officials do not expect to lay off any employees. Three positions, which were vacant, have already been eliminated. They plan to eliminate another five through attrition in the next two years. That will leave three remaining security guards to patrol the campuses nights and weekends.

“We’re looking to put our resources into protecting students and staff and less emphasis on (protecting) facilities,” Superintendent E. Tom Giugni said.

Better safety for students and teachers involves altering a 45-year-old anti-truancy program that officials have in the past promoted as the only one of its kind in the state.

The program teams six police officers with six truancy officers in patrol cars.

But as of Wednesday, the first day of classes, the teams have been split up. Having police officers and truant officers in one-person cars will double the coverage, district and police officials said.

District officials said they would not reduce the number of truant officers, who look for students playing hooky and respond to complaints of child abuse, among other juvenile-related matters.

The new plan is expected to prevent truant officers from being called away on calls not related to schools, Bennett and Giugni said.

Because the city’s Police Department is understaffed, officers were often called away on emergencies, during which the truant officers had no choice but to tag along or wait for police officers to return, they said.

“Many, many days,” Bennett said, just two such police-truant officer teams were available for school-related calls “because of shortages in the Police Department. I don’t want any guys dead in the water here, waiting for police officers.”

Giugni said: “Now we’ll know our cars can roll because they won’t have to wait for police officers.”

But the truant officers are not happy with the changes. They said the program has worked well and should not be changed.

“The loss of the dual-agency cooperation will have an immediate adverse impact on the safety of our schools and our community,” the truant officers wrote this week in a letter to the school board.

The truant officers said that because they do not have the same authority as police officers, they are less effective without them.

Giugni disagreed, noting that staff assistants often take on the security functions, and “they do a wonderful job, and they’re not sworn officers.”

Truant officers wonder whether the change will allow the police to release the six officers for other assignments.

“They’ll be assimilated into patrol,” truancy officer Larry Laingor said.

Police Chief Lawrence Binkley disagreed: “I feel really strongly about protecting the schools, and the idea is to double coverage, not decrease it.”