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HARLINGEN — Nearly 18 months of negotiations came down to a face-to-face deal.
After a two-hour closed-door discussion, Harlingen city commissioners and school board members late Thursday entered into an agreement providing the school district with four Harlingen police officers, including a sergeant, to help work security across 31 campuses, City Manager Gabriel Gonzalez stated after the meeting.
Now, officials are “editing” the memorandum, which they plan to release in “a few days,” Marcy Martinez, the district’s spokeswoman, stated.
Under previous agreements, the district was paying the city $213,714 in exchange for the four officers, along with $14,000 to cover vehicle maintenance and $2,336 for travel and training, city records show.
In closed session, officials were expected to “deliberate the deployment, or specific occasions for implementation of security personnel, critical infrastructure or security devices,” the meeting’s agenda states.
During the meeting, commissioners and board members were also are expected to discuss coordinating law enforcement efforts, the agenda states.
The meeting marked the first time commissioners and board members met in a formal setting to discuss the agreement, giving new schools Superintendent J.A. Gonzalez, who took office in August, a hand in the talks.
To work out the deal, the parties picked neutral ground — the University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley Collegiate High, the high school which the city and school district helped develop.
As the parties launched negotiations in mid 2022, the community was calling for heightened security in the wake of the May 24, 2022, shootings in which a gunman killed 19 students and two teachers at an Uvalde grade school.
The agreement goes back about 20 years.
In 2019, the city’s police department began assigning four full-time officers, including a sergeant and three officers, to help work security across the district’s campuses.
Every year, commissioners and board members had been automatically renewing the agreement.
But in July 2022, talks hit a snag after Police Chief Michael Kester called on district officials to “take steps” to develop a police department like those of many school districts, adding the city would help.
For 18 months, the parties exchanged proposals, with the school district requesting as many as six officers while the city called for a new administrative fee to help offset the program’s costs, including Kester’s time in overseeing the operation, along with payroll expenses, officials said.
Amid negotiations, school leaders took steps to bolster security across the district’s campuses.
In 2022, they entered into agreements with Cameron County and the cities of Primera and Combes to provide officers to work security, with the agencies’ daily assignments of 12 to 17 off-duty sheriff’s deputies, deputy constables and police officers, officials said.
By the opening of the 2022-2023 school year, the district was also hiring more security personnel, boosting their numbers to 42, they said.
At district offices, officials also began operating a “surveillance room,” monitoring hundreds of surveillance cameras across the district’s 31 campuses.
Meanwhile, city officials continued honoring the parties’ previous agreement, assigning four police officers to help work security.
