Facing a budget crunch and amid a new focus on keeping students out of the criminal justice system, St. Paul Public Schools is cutting the number of police officers assigned to its schools.

The city and school district are working on a new contract for seven school resource officers, down from nine last school year. The proposed annual cost to the district would be $698,000, down from $884,500. The city’s cost share remains $100,000.

In recent years, the city has posted an officer at each of the seven comprehensive high schools plus two roving officers. Next year, the roving officers are out, with the other seven leaving their assigned schools when needed elsewhere.

The change unfortunately will result in street cops being called to elementary and middle schools more often, said Laura Olson, the district’s security manager.

Olson told the school board Tuesday that she’d like to spend some of the savings on community service liaisons — people from the community who are trained in nonviolent intervention and paid $20 an hour. The district had six liaisons last year working at four middle and high schools that have had significant behavior problems.

School board chairman Jon Schumacher suggested that as a pilot project one high school use liaisons exclusively, without a police officer present.

However, Olson said the relationships officers build with students help with overall public safety in the city. Students also overwhelmingly support having officers in school — 92 percent of St. Paul freshmen and juniors, according to a recent survey.

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ARRESTS DOWN

The district saw a dramatic reduction in school arrests last school year — just five after 56 in 2015-16 — after school and police officials agreed to make arrests only in the most serious cases.

That’s out of 1,171 incidents where a student committed an offense — level 4 or 5 in the district’s handbook — that typically requires police notification.

“I think we’re on the right track,” Olson said.

School officers handcuffed students 19 times last school year and used pepper spray just once, down from nine times the previous year.

Pepper spray sometimes is used to disperse crowds of students preventing staff from responding to a fight. Olson said the schools and police have talked with students about the dangers of crowding around a fight, but pepper spray remains an option.

“Kids are going to be kids and they’re going to go in and see what’s happening,” Olson said.

Officers tracked 1,360 instances where they advised or assisted school staff with a discipline problem.

Police began tracking positive interactions with students for the first time last year, recording 3,210 such contacts.

Minneapolis Public Schools also plans to reduce its police contract next year, going from 16 officers to 14 at a cost of $1.15 million.

Clarification: This story has been updated to clarify how schools and police respond to student fights that attract a crowd.