Sarnia seeking input on school crossing guard program

City of Sarnia officials want to hear how the existing crossing guard program is working, after city hall took control of it last year.

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Sarnia started directly employing guards at school crossings after costs to contract the service unexpectedly shot up at the end of the 2023 school year.

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With lower costs per guard — $14,500 per year versus $23,500 per year contracted — things have been going well so far, said development and transportation manager Alister Brown.

“The guards provide a very essential service to the community and it’s nice to have that direct line of communication with them and be able to address things as they come up directly,” he said.

Total program cost from September to the end of December was about $215,000, including training and the cost for a new city position to oversee the guards, he said.

Contracting the service in 2023-24 would have cost about $616,000, whereas it cost it cost about $430,000 the year before, city officials said in a report last July.

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The company providing the city’s service went bankrupt last May and the city had to hire another to cover the last month of the school year, at an extra expense.

Part of the plan in bringing the program in-house was a mid-way review, including public engagement, council decided last summer.

That recently launched and people have until Feb. 21 at speakupsarnia.ca to weigh in on how existing locations are functioning, how people’s experiences have been crossing, on guard professionalism, and whether new crossings should be considered.

There are currently 29 crossings staffed by guards in the city.

There’s a process for evaluating how many locations are warranted that factors in things like how many students are crossing, traffic conditions and other variables.

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The number of crossings is constantly being monitored and updated as required based on that system, as kids grow up and change schools or move in and out of areas, Brown said.

City officials want public input on that system for evaluating crossings too, he said, including whether the city should consider things like adding a pedestrian crossover — roughly $30,000 to $55,000, depending on the type — before adding a crossing guard.

Whether crossovers would replace crossing guards under those circumstances, or if both would be required, isn’t clear and is something else the city wants feedback on, he said.

“If the public thinks we should develop a warrant, then we would look to develop a warrant that would speak more clearly to that,” he said.

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