Bayside Lawmaker Calls For More Security Cameras In NYC Schools

BAYSIDE, QUEENS -- A Bayside lawmaker wants to make sure every New York City school is outfitted with brand new security cameras, and he knows it will take some serious cash to do it.

City Councilman Paul Vallone (D-Bayside) responded to Mayor Bill de Blasio's preliminary 2019 fiscal budget on Monday asking another $100 million be carved out for the new security camera systems.

Specifically, he is requesting the funds for new Internet Protocol Digital Video Surveillance systems in New York City schools that don't already have one - which he claims are quite a few.

Vallone said roughly a third of NYC's more than 1,700 schools - including 62 percent of those in his district -don't have the IPDVS camera systems, which allow school officials to watch live and recorded footage caught on tape directly from their computers and let authorized personnel view it remotely.

"In the greatest city on earth, it is completely inexcusable for a third of our schools, or more, to lack a modern camera system," Vallone said.

The NYC Department of Education's current five-year capital plan set aside $100 million for the new cameras, but much of that funding has gone unused as it focused on upgrading schools' current surveillance systems rather than installing new ones, Vallone said.

The additional funds requested for the city's 2019 budget would essentially double that amount to $200 million, but Vallone said that still wouldn't be enough to install new IPDVS systems in each school.

The DOE would need to pull the rest of the funds from its next five-year capital plan for 2020 - 2024, he said.

"We are about to enter the DOE's next five-year capital plan, and now is the time to clearly show our commitment to school safety and ensure it remains a top priority," Vallone said.

(Lead photo by Ulrich Marx/Getty Images)