On March 8, 2000 – the year after a new constitution was introduced in Venezuela – it was decreed that the Metropolitan District of Caracas would be created, and that some of the powers of El Hatillo Municipality would be delegated to the "Alcaldía Mayor", which would also govern the Baruta, Libertador, Sucre and Chacao municipalities. Each of the five municipalities is divided into parishes; El Hatillo has only one, the Santa Rosalía de Palermo Parish, sometimes called Santa Rosalía de El Hatillo Parish or simply El Hatillo Parish. In December 2006, as a part of a constitutional reform, Chávez proposed a reorganisation of the municipal powers. Chávez mentioned his reform plans again in his January 2007 presidential inauguration, suggesting a new form of subdivision—communal cities—in which mayors and municipalities would be replaced by communal powers. Relative to the other Caracas municipalities, El Hatillo has the region's lowest crime rate. Data from 2003 shows that 53,555 crimes occurred within the five municipalities of Caracas, but only 418 (about 0.78%) took place within El Hatillo. El Hatillo's population is significantly lower than that of its sister municipalities; viewing 2003 crime data relative to 2001 census data, El Hatillo had an annual rate of 7.7 crimes for every one thousand citizens, while the average of the five Caracas municipalities was 19.4 for every one thousand citizens. The main police force in El Hatillo is the municipal police, sometimes referred to as Poli-Hatillo. Other police forces can also intervene in the municipality, including the Metropolitan Police, and the Miranda State Police. The municipality has one higher education facility – Nueva Esparta University, a 30,000 square meters (323,000 sq ft) institution located in Los Naranjos. Nueva Esparta school was founded in 1954, but the private university was not constructed until 1989. El Hatillo offers free public education, with a total of seventeen primary education schools; eleven are public and six are private. Nineteen preschools exist: ten public and nine private. Data for secondary education is incomplete; there are five private secondary schools in the municipality, but the number of public secondary schools is unavailable. Government data shows each educational stage separately, but an individual facility may contain preschool, primary and secondary education. The 2001 census shows enrollment of 8,525 students during the 2000–2001 school year; by the end of the school year, 8,149 had passed.