With just a week to spare before the first day of school, the Mercedes ISD board narrowly approved hiring a security services provider Tuesday, with three trustees voting against the company and some expressing concern over continuing the district’s trend of security woes.
During the same meeting, the board approved an interlocal agreement with the city of Mercedes that increased the number of educational resource police officers at the district.
L4 Security Group, the security firm trustees approved in a 4-3 vote, is the same vendor they considered approving in June before tabling the topic because the district failed to review references in its ranking of providers.
References apparently changed little. Of the selection committee’s 16 members, 13 picked L4 as their top choice, Interim Superintendent Richard Rivera said.
“We had several meetings,” he said. “We heard the five presentations. The committee ranked them, and they ranked L4 as number one, MLG as number 2.”
Rivera said L4 agreed to provide the services without clocking overtime and could adequately staff the district’s facilities, both frequent concerns for trustees in relation to security guards.
Trustees’ concerns go back to the beginning of the 2021-2022 school year.
After a bumpy selection process, the board picked a firm over MLG Protection Services, which was being recommended by administration.
The firm the board picked — 2 Zero 5 — failed to meet the district’s security needs during the beginning of the year due to staffing shortages, and the board quickly jilted it in favor of MLG.
This June, however, police arrested an MLG security guard for allegedly making bomb threats at Mercedes High School in a series of criminal scandals and safety blunders at the district.
Speaking at Tuesday’s meeting, Trustee Lucy Delgado alluded to some of those safety struggles and expressed concern over conducting background checks by the time school starts.
“We need to look credible,” she said. “Especially to our parents and especially to our staff, because they are included in this as well. And we need to make sure that things are done right.”
Delgado, despite ultimately voting in favor of hiring L4 Tuesday, said she wasn’t entirely confident in the decision.
“But there’s two words that I think when I think about this, is credibility and trustworthiness,” she said. “We need to be able to say ‘Yes, we’re strongly about this. Yes, the committee ranked them, this is the information they received and we’re good. This is the vendor for us.’ I still don’t think — I’m not there yet.”
Trustee Brian Acosta, who voted against approving L4, cited concerns over the firm’s length of time in business and the number of employees it has.
“My concern is that we wind up with a situation like we did last year, just trying to save some money,” he said about staffing shortages.
An L4 representative at the meeting told trustees he could not guarantee staffing would be completely ramped up by the beginning of the school year, but that the firm would foot the bill for any necessary additional personnel.
Acosta said he felt MLG was more suited for the district’s needs — despite the fact that a former employee of the security firm allegedly called in a bomb threat at one of the high schools earlier this year.
Board President Oscar Hernandez said that whole bomb threat scandal was a dealbreaker for him on the MLG front.
“The issue that I’m having is that there was an individual with that firm that called in a false report…I mean, I don’t know how the board wishes about that, but to me it’s non-negotiable, unforgivable, to say the least,” he said.
MLG has previously said that it received no complaints about the alleged threat-maker and that he was thoroughly vetted before his hire, that he’s no longer with the company and that it beefed up pre-employment screening after the arrest.
Superintendent Rivera spoke up to address concerns by saying, essentially, that he and district administration would hold security staff accountable.
“Security’s very important to me,” he said. “They take care of our boys and girls, and I’m gonna be involved with it myself big time.”
More Mercedes Police Department personnel will be involved with that effort as well. The interlocal agreement with the city trustees approved Tuesday will up the number of school resource officers at the district from two to five. Two of those officers will be assigned to Mercedes High and Mercedes Early College Academy, two to the district’s middle schools, and one will be put on a rotation at elementary schools. The district will pay for those services through federal ESSER funds, Rivera said.
“The key here is student safety in our school,” he said.
