Estimate of the guard: why regions underestimate the cost of school security
In Russia, they started talking about the huge scale of dumping in tenders for the protection of schools in several regions. This was stated in the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation. Some companies underestimate prices at auction by 70%, experts have noticed. However, an analysis of auctions for school security in different regions conducted by Izvestia showed that dumping, in fact, is not so much market participants as customers: already at the stage of procurement, the initial contract price is cut by 1.5–3 times, explaining this by "budget commitment limits." How they save money on the safety of children in the regions — in the material of Izvestia.
How to underestimate the price of contracts for the protection of schools
Mikhail Anichkin, Chairman of the commission of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation on security and cooperation with Public Health Organizations, said that dumping in competitions for security in schools up to 50-70% is allowed in the regions. Because of this, when municipalities hold tenders under Federal Law No. 44-FZ ("On the Contract System"), the winner is the company that offers the lowest price but provides substandard services, he warned.
At the same time, there is an order from the Rosgvardiya, which clearly states the formula for the initial price, taking into account taxes and all payments, the representative of the OP of the Russian Federation recalled. We are talking about order No. 45, based on which the initial (maximum) contract price (NMCC) should be calculated.
As the Izvestia analysis showed, NMCC calculations are usually performed correctly, but what happens immediately after that is the reason why security in schools is as cheap as possible, regardless of who is bidding.
The editorial staff studied several recent examples of purchases made in March 2026 in different regions. During this period, tenders were held in the Republic of Tyva for the provision of security services at the Kyzyl-Aryg boarding school. Based on the calculation of the NMCC in accordance with the methodology of the Rosgvardiya, the cost of one hour of operation of the guard post is 383 rubles. Taking into account that security should be provided for 3672 hours, the contract value should have been 1.4 million rubles. However, the customer reduced the cost per person-hour to 272 rubles, and therefore the contract price dropped to 1 million rubles.
The same thing is happening in other regions. In the Republic of Buryatia, they purchased security services for the Kliuyevskaya secondary school in the Kabansky district. A detailed calculation of the NMCC is given, from which it follows that the cost per man-hour should be 702 rubles, and the contract value is about 850 thousand rubles. However, in the end, a completely different amount went to the auction — 461.7 thousand rubles, based on the calculation that one man-hour costs 380 rubles.
The customer directly stated the answer to the question of why this happened after calculating the NMCC: "in connection with the increased limits of budget obligations for 2026, <...> and also taking into account the requirements of Part 2 of art. 72, Part 3 of art. 219 of the Budget Code of the Russian Federation."
It turns out that, whatever the calculation of the NMCC, the cost of security services will be formed only based on the amount of budget funds brought to the region for these purposes.
This approach is found everywhere. For example, in Shakhty, Rostov region, in Secondary School No. 43 named after M.N. Tararin, the cost of one hour of security post operation was estimated at 625.85 rubles, and the potential contract amount was 3.169 million rubles. However, the participants in the competitive procedures were offered completely different figures: 1,367 million rubles as the initial contract price, based on the cost of one person-hour of 270 rubles. The underestimation of the NMCC, calculated according to the Rosgvardiya methodology, occurred 2.3 times.
Even educational institutions that are considered elite have integrated themselves into the same logic of saving budget funds for school security. The Innopolis school in the Republic of Tatarstan calculated that one hour of security post operation costs 641.95 rubles, but also referred to paragraph 2. art. 72 of the Budget Code of the Russian Federation, based on which "contracts are concluded and paid within the limits of budgetary obligations." Therefore, the initial maximum contract price was calculated by taking 380 rubles for the cost of one hour. Savings on the safety of gifted children — more than 1.5 times.
Some customers don't even bother with these essentially meaningless calculations. In particular, when purchasing security services at Secondary School No. 390 in St. Petersburg, the drafters of the documentation write: "Due to the impossibility of using the NMCC calculated in accordance with the order of the Rosgvardiya, since it does not correspond to the amount of budget funds, <...> the method of comparable market prices (market analysis) for calculating NMCC was chosen." The same was done by secondary school No. 6 named after S.T. Kutsev in the village of Kushchevskaya, Krasnodar Territory: they did not explain anything in the documentation, but simply calculated the NMCC based on "comparable market prices." It turned out to be about 220 rubles per hour.
It should be noted that school security is usually funded by the regional or municipal budget — the system may be structured differently in different regions of the Russian Federation. Moreover, there is no separate line of expenses for "School security". The safety of children is ensured through the articles "Other work, services", "Maintenance of property", etc. Experts emphasize that in this situation, the financing of school security is carried out on a residual basis.
The customer is most often the school itself, which receives "budget commitment limits" from the administrator of budget funds — that is, the remaining amount of money for protection. The contract amount is determined based on these limits.
Judging by the analyzed competitive procedures, schools across Russia are trying to meet the amount of 200 to 350 rubles per hour of operation of one security post.
In purchases that are conducted from a single supplier, there is no such detailed calculation of the NMCC. The cost is set based on the above price range, depending on the region and educational institution. For example, school No. 1 in the city of Cherepanovo in the Novosibirsk region pays 292 rubles per hour for a guard post, and Novoseleznevskaya Secondary School in the Tyumen Region pays 350 rubles.
In Tatarstan, in the combined purchase for 12 educational institutions of the Muslyumovsky district, they did not show the calculation of the NMCC, but simply gave a single price per person-hour — 230 rubles. For secondary school No. 23 in Tambov, 250 rubles per hour were allocated for security, for Secondary school No. 29 named after N.G. Garagan in the village of Druzhny in the Krasnodar Territory — only 207 rubles.
But the lowest amount in the March purchases reviewed by Izvestia turned out to be at the special correctional school No. 35 in Ust-Labinsk, Krasnodar Territory. There, the potential value of the contract was supposed to be, according to calculations, 1 million 463 thousand rubles, however, the documents state that "in order to bring the NMCC in line with the approved limits of budgetary obligations, the customer applied a reduction coefficient equal to 0.37." As a result, the cost of one man-hour reaches only 125 rubles, and the amount to be terminated is 546 thousand rubles. In fact, the cost of protecting a correctional school was underestimated by three times even at the stage of preparing documentation for the auction. Only one company came for this amount, which received the contract.
Izvestia has sent requests to municipalities regarding contracts in which an amount significantly underestimated relative to the calculated NMCC has been put up for auction. No responses had been received at the time of publication.
How much do they pay for security
Up to 75-80% of the cost of school security services is accounted for by employee salaries, explained Sergey Silivonchik, Chairman of the Board of the Union of Self-regulatory Organizations in the Non-Governmental security Sector, Vice-president of the SRO Association "School without Danger".
The calculation methodology approved by Order No. 45 was created in such a way that it would be enough for the salaries of security company employees, taxes, and other necessary expenses, said Roman Nasonov, an expert in integrated security and head of the Rus Association of Security Structures.
— But the local authorities consider the protection of educational institutions not a priority for the budget and decide to significantly reduce this price, for example, by half. As a result, the money allocated for security services effectively eliminates the possibility of recruiting qualified employees," the source told Izvestia.
Right now, according to him, there are several auctions that no company has entered, simply because the prices offered turned out to be too low.
Savings in the event of a discrepancy between the contract price and actual calculations occur due to several standard schemes, the head of the Law center drew attention.Guru" Alexander Evstashenkov.
— The first is the transfer of employees from employment contracts to civil law contracts or self—employed status: this allows you not to pay insurance premiums, saving up to 30% of the payroll. The second is the actual reduction in the number of working guards with formal compliance of the staffing table with the contract. The third is savings on everything that is not explicitly stated in the terms of reference: if the TOR did not specify the requirements for equipment, uniforms, and frequency of briefings, the contractor will take advantage of this," he told Izvestia.
Is it legal for customers to reduce the contract price
Underestimating the value of contracts is a systemic problem related to both imperfect legislation and insufficient funding, Sergey Silivonchik emphasized. According to him, for the customer, it is not the safety of people and facilities that comes to the fore, but savings. As a result, there is a "reverse selection": responsible players leave the market, and companies that optimize costs as much as possible remain.
— Dumping by market participants is really present, this is one of the important problems. However, now the problem with customers who underestimate the contract price is coming to the fore. The customer, referring to the norms of one law, tries to ignore the norms of another and simply technically brings the size of the NMCC in line with the limits," the expert pointed out.
Industry participants, he said, sent a request to the Ministry of Finance and received a response in June last year (available to Izvestia), from which it follows that the calculation of the NMCC using the Rosgvardiya methodology is mandatory, and a reduction in the contract amount is possible only by reducing the volume of services or the conditions for its provision.
However, in all the purchases for school security reviewed by the editorial board, the decrease occurred only in terms of costs — the volume of services remained the same.
The Ministry of Finance confirmed to Izvestia that the calculation should be made based on the Rules of the Rosgvardiya. State contracts under the Budget Code are concluded and paid within the limits of budgetary obligations brought to the customer.
"If the increased limits of budget obligations are not sufficient to carry out the purchase, the customer has the right to send, in accordance with the established procedure, to the chief administrator a proposal to increase the volume of the increased limits to the volume determined taking into account the requirements of the order of the Rosgvardiya," the Ministry of Finance added.
Izvestia also sent requests to the Ministry of Education. No responses had been received by the time of publication.
Are companies dumping
Experts admit that the problem of dumping by market participants is also present. In some cases, customers do not find the tools to combat this phenomenon and conclude a contract with those who offered the lowest price, even if it cannot ensure the quality of services, said Sergey Silivonchik.
Speaking about the problem, Anatoly Vyborny, deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on Security and Anti-Corruption, noted that the Committee of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation on business safety analyzed almost 25 thousand security contracts per year.
— In 70% of cases, purchases were made through electronic auctions, where the winner is determined only by the price. In such forms, it is simply impossible to assess the quality of the participant's work, this is a loophole for dumping. The average drop was about 50%," the parliamentarian told Izvestia.
In turn, Alexander Evstashenkov noted that in the case of security services in schools, the customer has the right to hold a competition where not only the price, but also the qualifications, experience, and business reputation of the participant are evaluated. But most customers choose the auction as the least risky method of purchase from the point of view of inspections.
— In the competition, applications must be evaluated according to several criteria, decisions must be justified, and any mistake can result in a complaint to the FAS. The winner of the auction is the one who offered the lowest price, and there are no complaints to the customer. Saving money at the start is perceived as an achievement, not as a risk," the expert explained.
Against this background, the initiative of the security community to amend legislation in the field of procurement is currently being discussed with the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Economic Development, the Ministry of Education and Science, Rosgvardiya, the Federal Antimonopoly Service and the Federal Tax Service, Anatoly Vyborny said.
— If you just increase the financing, but leave the previous auction system, where the cheapest wins, this money will still go to the dumpers. Therefore, the first and most important thing is to remove auctions when purchasing security services, and switch to contests where 60% of the evaluation is quality, and only 40% is price. Such a mechanism is already in the law, it just needs to be made mandatory," the deputy stressed.
It is worth noting that some of the purchases reviewed by Izvestia were based on this principle. But the price set for the payment of security services was initially lower than when calculating the NMCC according to the Rosgvardiya methodology.
In parallel with the introduction of the competition, it is necessary to provide a separate target item in the budget of schools for security — then the starting price of the contract will be adequate, and the winner will be determined by quality, and not by the minimum price, Anatoly Vyborny suggested.
Sergey Silivonchik also called for the allocation of targeted financing of security services in the budgets of the regions. At the same time, in his opinion, it is necessary to hold the customer accountable for choosing a deliberately unscrupulous contractor. In addition, the expert considered it advisable to consider the possibility of supporting the initiative for mandatory membership in a self-regulatory organization for participants in competitions for the protection of facilities in order to filter out "one-dayers" and companies with gray schemes.
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