June 15, 2023
By: Dwayne Page
With the state prepared to fund all five schools in DeKalb County with a school resource officer, Sheriff Patrick Ray has come up with a plan that would allow him to use already allocated funds in his budget (currently for SROs) to add another detective and two more deputies to his staff.
Sheriff Ray presented his proposal to the county budget committee Tuesday night.
Earlier this year, the Tennessee General Assembly adopted legislation proposed by Governor Bill Lee to fund up to $75,000 per school in Tennessee for an SRO Officer. In DeKalb County, the sheriff must apply for the state funds which are recurring each year. “The state is going to give $75,000 to each school and the school resource officers’ salaries will come out of that and anything left can be spent on an SRO position whether it be for uniforms, guns, vests, gun safes, vehicles, etc.,” said Sheriff Ray.
Currently, an SRO is stationed at each of the five schools in DeKalb County. Three of them are funded by the county and two by the school district but all five SRO’s work for the sheriff’s department and those salaries are in his budget. “The way we have the budget right now is the school district funds two of the SROs and the county pays for three. The five SRO salaries are in my budget under “salaries” and with the benefits and all it comes to a total of $323,982. The school system reimburses their part ($128,982) for two SROs back to the county general fund,” said Sheriff Ray.
Under state law called “maintenance of effort”, the county cannot cut salaries or the number of employees in the sheriff’s department budget without the sheriff’s consent. Although the salaries for all five SRO positions are currently in the sheriff’s department budget, Sheriff Ray said he is willing to surrender the maintenance of effort requirement for the two positions for which the school district reimburses the county, but he wants to keep the maintenance of effort for the other three, funded by the county and to shift their duties from SROs to detective (1) and deputies (2) should he apply for the state grant to fully fund all five SROs.
“What we want to do is apply for the state grant for five SROs and get $75,000 per school,” said Sheriff Ray during Tuesday night’s budget committee meeting. “We would ask to keep the three (officer positions) the county is paying for now because they are already in the budget. With one we would like to make a detective position and the other two for deputies,” said Sheriff Ray.
“With the five SROS we already have, there is a maintenance of effort (to keep the salaries and number of employees in the budget as is) but if we could keep those three officers (funded by the county), I would give back the two that the school system is paying for totaling $128,982. I would give back (eliminate) that amount in SRO salaries from my budget because I don’t think its right for me to keep all five (maintenance of effort required) SRO salaries in my budget when the school is paying for two, and the county is paying for three. If you leave all five (SRO salaries) in there (budget), the county will have to continue to pay for all five (under maintenance of effort)”, said Sheriff Ray.
According to Sheriff Ray, the roles of those current three SRO officer funded positions could be changed to better help the department with an ever-increasing workload.
“We have three detectives there now and one of them is mostly doing drug work. That’s all he does but he often borrows one of the other two detectives to help him because he can’t do drug buys and everything by himself,” said Sheriff Ray. “The other two have different things they do. For example, we do adult protective services. If someone mistreats the elderly, then they (detectives) have to investigate it. When we have child sex crimes one of the detectives works those and that’s a full-time job with meetings and everything that has to be done. Our detectives also do all our burglaries and thefts and anything else that requires investigation work. They are on call every three weeks which is part of their job,” he said.
“As for the two SRO officer funded positions we want to reassign as deputies, if we could keep those positions that would make another shift for us because we currently have a swing shift officer. We run three (officers) per shift, but some nights like tonight (Tuesday) we have two officers on because one is off duty. The Smithville Police Department has as many officers, if not more, than we have on a shift. We’re also having to do (work) Alexandria now because they (Alexandria Police Department) don’t have but one or two officers there, so we are running all their calls because nobody is there (Alexandria Police Department) after 10 p.m. We also do mutual aid with the Smithville Police Department. A lot of times we have to take calls for them too because they are tied up. That puts a strain on our department to do all that,” said Sheriff Ray.
While recognizing the sheriff’s need for more help, budget committee members expressed concern about the cost to the county should the state funded grant program for SROs ever end in the future. With five new state funded SRO salaries being added to the sheriff’s department budget in addition to the three the sheriff wants to reassign, that would mean the county ‘s future maintenance of effort responsibility would increase by having to pick up the tab for the five positions the state had been funding.
Sheriff Ray pointed out that the state defunding the new SRO program in the future is not likely but until such time, the county would not be out any extra expense because the three SRO positions he wants to reassign to other duties are already funded in his budget. Sheriff Ray added that he would probably be unwilling to apply for the state grant for the SROs if the county doesn’t accept this proposal. In that event, the current SRO plan would remain in place with the county continuing to fund three SROs and the school district reimbursing the county for the other two SROs.
“I wouldn’t think you (county budget committee) would deny three officers when it won’t cost you anything,” said Sheriff Ray.
Meanwhile, Sheriff Ray said another SRO is needed at the high school and he has asked Director of Schools Patrick Cripps that the school district continue to fund one SRO position to give DCHS two SROs.
“I met with Mr. Cripps this week and asked that he keep one SRO for us to put at the high school. That SRO could also fill in for one of the other SROs when they are out,” said Sheriff Ray.
No official response yet from Cripps or the Board of Education on Sheriff Ray’s request.
Sheriff Ray plans to address his proposal with the entire county commission during a meeting of the whole session on Thursday, June 22 at 6 p.m. at the history room of the county complex prior to the next regular monthly meeting Monday, June 26 at 6:30 pm. when the county commission is scheduled to act on passage of the 2023-24 budgets and tax rate in the auditorium of the Mike Foster Multipurpose Center at the county complex.