ELLENVILLE – If you've spent time on the campus of the Ellenville Central School District, chances are you've bumped into State Trooper Leroy Seals. As the school district's resource officer, Seals is a fixture on the ECSD campus. And, given that he works with teachers, parents, and students, he never really knows what the day might have in store for him. One day he might be breaking up a fight, on another he might be asked to give a sick student a ride home from school because his or her parents are stuck at the office. Given the diverse nature of his work, Seals takes a somewhat general view when it comes to his job description.

"The way I like to look at it," Seals says, "my job is to make everybody more comfortable."

But the comfort Seals provides could become a thing of the past, as Albany continues to look for creative ways to close a multi-billion dollar budget deficit. To help close this gap, Governor Paterson is proposing the reposting of approximately 119 School Resource Officers — or "SROs" — that are stationed at school districts around the state.

And having a state trooper posted on campus can go a long way toward ensuring that potential problems are nipped in the bud, before a situation might get out of hand and spill over into the community at large. ECSD Superintendent Lisa Wiles says that the presence of Trooper Seals has done a great deal when it comes to ensuring that students have a safe campus, and that she hopes the governor can be convinced to rethink this redeployment.

"We're very concerned about it," Wiles says about the governor's proposed cuts. "We're lobbying with other school districts in the state for the program to stay intact, the way it is."

Wiles says that given the current economic situation, it is understandable that the governor should be looking for areas in which to trim the fat. But she wonders whether such a move could end up being penny-wise but pound-foolish.

"This is a program that's been proven to work," Wiles says.

Wiles feels that not having an SRO on campus could create a situation in which problems are allowed to fester, thereby making a solution that much more difficult later down the road. In talking to Seals about his work, it's easy to see how his presence helps the district conserve scant resources. One of the areas in which Seals works closely with the administration is in the area of liability.

"Part of what we [SROs] do for our training is attend seminars where we talk to the school's insurance company," Seals says. "They show us areas in which schools have been sued successfully."

Seals says that such lawsuits usually involve a student being injured in some way, so reducing potential liability also has the effect of keeping kids safe.

Wiles says that another area in which an SRO can make a big impact is in the area of gang intervention. Several years ago, according to Wiles, there were fears that gangs had begun to infiltrate the student body at the ECSD.

"Trooper Seals contacted a specialist up in Albany," Wiles says. "We had a good, proactive program for our students about what being in a gang means, what it doesn't mean, how to look for the signs, etcetera."

Having these kinds of state resources at the fingertips of administrators can often prevent larger problems from surfacing, according to Wiles. However, she says that at first there was some resistance to having a police officer on campus.

"We were worried about the connotation," Wiles says. "Why do we need a resource officer?"

However, she says that, in working with Trooper Seals, she's become a full convert and now can't imagine what it would be like without him around. Wiles also says that Ellenville Police Chief Philip Mattracion has told her on several occasions that having a state trooper in the school means that fewer police resources are being consumed at the village level.

Seals, however, just wants to do what he can to make students, and parents, feel comfortable coming to him. As a resident of Accord, Seals is a member of the community he polices, and he goes out of his way to make sure that people see him as a neighbor. He's been so successful at this that students sometimes don't see him as a cop.

"Some kids have come up to me and said 'I'm going to go to the police,'" Seals jokes. "I say to them 'Wait; I am the police.'"

The next few weeks should show whether the message is getting through to Albany, as administrators from around the state turn up the heat on the governor's office. In the meantime, Wiles is counting her blessings.

"We're lucky to have Trooper Seals," Wiles says. "It's been wonderful for us to have him here."