District: Additional Resource Officer Funding Unlikely

In the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary murders, School District of Pickens County officials have hoped that the state would provide financial assistance to enable the district to place school resource officers in all of the district’s elementary schools.

Those hopes appear to have been dashed.

Superintendent Dr. Kelly Pew told board members Monday night that it does not appear the state will be giving additional funds to allow for more school resource officers.

She said she spoke with Rep. Phil Owens, R-Easley, last week.

“The understanding at the state level at this point is that there will not be funding for school resource officers,” Pew said. “However, there will be the possibility of a grant that school districts could apply for to get additional security.”

The grant, should the district be awarded it, will not be able to pay for a school resource officer at each district elementary school, Pew said.

“There’s just not that kind of funding,” she said. “But there should be a grant that school districts could apply for, and then they would determine which school districts, which schools would actually get those resource officers.”

Pew said Chief Mark Keel, head of the State Law Enforcement Division, favors having ore school resource officers in districts and school vs. allowing administrators and teachers with concealed weapons permits to be armed in the classroom, a possible solution that has been proposed.

Keel said teachers and administrators do not have the required training that would be needed

“He talked about the liability school districts would face if they allowed employees who did not have that training to carry arms,” Pew said. “However, he also agrees that funding is an issue, not only for school districts but for law enforcement agencies.”

Keel spoke about the need for secure entries and vestibules in school facilities, something the district’s building program is already providing, Pew said.

Entryways in the district’s new facilities allow receptionists to see and speak with people who come to the door before they’re ever inside the building, Pew said.

“Our plan is to have that in place in all schools before schools open in August,” Pew said. “Getting it into our schools is our first priority.”

Pew said SC Highway Patrol has offered to have patrol officers park their cars in school lots while they're doing paperwork.

“We certainly agreed,” she said. “So hopefully there is a presence of highway patrol in our parking lots.”

Trustee Ben Trotter said he’d spoken with County Council Chairman Neal Smith. Trotter said the possibility of getting county funds to help pay for school resource officers was slim, though the county may donate patrol cars that could be parked at district schools.

“He also recommended that we work through County Council to hire some reserve officers through the Pickens County Sheriff’s Office,” Trotter said.

He said he would like to see those officers work a teacher’s schedule – 180 days. “There’s no need for the school district to pay the salary of a policeman or anyone else if he’s not on school property,” he said. “When I go to a school at fifteen minutes till 8 and the school resource officer hasn’t even got there yet, what good is he? What good is he? They should be there at 7:30, when the students are walking through that door. They ain’t even there. What are we paying them for? Who are they accountable?”

Trotter said he would like to see a plan worked out that stipulates school resource officers be on campus before the school day begins.

“Do we want to use the reserve officers through the Sheriff's Office?” Trotter said. “We can contact county council, talk to them, get them to go before the sheriff. We need to come up with a decent salary for those people, and then they would work for us.”

He said he believed retired officers would return to work for the school district.

“We don't need to pay them all year if they're not going to be there, but we do need to pay them good,” Trotter said.

Board chair Judy Edwards asked if school resource officers were paid for 180 days or the entire year.

“Are they paid for just 180 days, just divided into 12 months' pay?” Edwards said.

Pew said district staff would check into that.

“Each (law enforcement) agency bills us, and it's based on the agency,” she said.

“If we are paying their entire salary, that's something we can negotiate with because they're not working for us the entire year,” Edwards said. “That might be a way for the cities to help us. Divide their entire salary, see what it per day, and we pay 180 (days) of it, and the cities pay the rest of it.”

Trotter said it's the district's responsibility to educate the children, and the Sheriff's Office and police departments' responsibility to protect them.

“(But) I think it's everybody's concern to protect the children,” Trotter said. “Now we have offered to put up money to help do this. I think the city and the county and all ought to get in here and help us protect our children.

“We're willing to throw money into the till,” he continued. “They ought to, too, because that's their job – to serve and protect.”

Trustee Alex Saitta he wouldn't want to advertise which schools had school resource officers and which did not. He also advocated for SROs to be undercover and for their cars not be marked.”

“You would never know where they were, you would never know who that person was,” Saitta said.

Finance Director Clark Webb said school resource officers were required to be in uniform.

Webb also said that Chief Keel said that having marked patrol cars in school lots acted as a deterrent.

Saitta said putting school resource officers in all district schools seemed unlikely.

“It's quite disappointing that the state's not going to give us money,” Saitta said. “We don't have new revenue this year, I think that's pretty clear, we're probably looking at a deficit. Additional money for additional SROs is going to have to come from reductions elsewhere in the budget. I think that's going to very unlikely.”

He said the district would have to solve the problem by thinking outside the box.

Trustee Jimmy Gillespie asked if the school district could hire security guards.

Trotter said he'd been told security guards were not an option.

“The people in Columbia said absolutely not,” he said.

He said buzzers and cameras at school entrance ways would only impede attackers, not stop them completely.

“Is there anything we can do to make our students 100 percent safe? No,” Trotter said. “Let's don't lie to ourselves and let's don't lie to the public.”

Edwards agreed.

“We all know we're probably not going to stop it,” she said. “We might can slow it down. We're not going to totally stop it, but we've got to do the best we can.”

Edwards ask district staff to find more information about school resource officers' salaries, including how much is paid by the district, which schools could best share school resource officers and have that information for the board at their April meeting.