of all of the things Worcester could be spending this money on

...cameras and plastic buckets of what ALICE thinks is important...?

The federal government, too, has opened its coffers for school security spending, according to school officials like Worcester school safety director Robert Pezzella, who said his district specifically benefited from a bigger carve-out for that area in the U.S.′ annual Title IV assistance last year. After getting $60,000 for building security upgrades in the district’s allocation last year, he said the school department could see up to $200,000 this coming year for potential safety needs. 

“We seem to be in good times now,” he said, after previously seeing a “very dry spell” for school security funding at the state and federal levels. 

Worcester has used that extra money, along with its own annual $100,000 school safety budget line item and various government grants, to pay for extensive surveillance system improvements at the secondary level, according to Mr. Pezzella. This past year, the district installed dozens of new cameras and associated software at Worcester East Middle School, Forest Grove Middle School, Claremont Academy and Doherty Memorial High School. Mr. Pezzella hopes to make similar upgrades at Burncoat High School and South High Community School this coming year. 

“It’s much more expensive now than it used to be” to put in that new equipment because of the technology’s move to internet-based software, he said, adding the cost to revamp Worcester East Middle’s surveillance system, which involved putting in between 15 to 25 cameras around the building, was around $25,000 alone, for example. 

The district spent around $40,000, meanwhile, to buy around 1,400 Go Buckets for the coming school year – about one for each home classroom in the district, according to Mr. Pezzella. While the cost of the supplies is built into the per-bucket cost, he added, school officials got to pick out the specific items they wanted included in them, like hornet spray – an alternative to mace, which is not allowed on school grounds, that can be used to potentially incapacitate a violent intruder up to 12 feet away.

 The lack of deliberation that's taking place on this spending in Worcester is an abrogation of process.

Note also, that the positions the article notes in passing? One year, grant funded. When the grant funding vanishes...?