6 additional school resource officer positions approved for Franklin County schools

On Friday, the county learned that it received a $561,000 Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services grant to add six school resource officer positions to the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office. Each of the six new school resource officers will be assigned to cover two Franklin County elementary schools.

“Five of those were current employees. We did hire one employee … she was already certified,” Franklin County Sheriff Bill Overton said. “She knew she was coming on board to fill that position. The other five, these were requests that they made, too. … They asked to be placed in this particular assignment.”

Overton said reassigning existing staff is the fastest way to fill the new school resource officer positions; training new recruits would take up to a year, to say nothing of the difficulty of hiring in the current job market.

“The sheriff’s office has the same hiring pressures that we’re having in our division. They’re having problems finding individuals to fill positions, too,” Franklin County School Board Chair Jeff Worley said during the board’s Monday evening meeting.

With the new school resource officers coming from existing staff, the sheriff’s office will need to backfill positions, on top of the four openings it already has.

“Our personnel understand that, until we can get these positions backfilled, it’s going to be a little bit tighter. But we still believe we can provide the service that the citizens of our county have come to appreciate and expect,” Overton said.

Overton said the county’s recent pay scale changes and raises will help attract applicants to backfill the positions. Meanwhile, several supervisors have asked about overtime pay as a way to grease the wheels for Overton’s understaffed team.

“We have a line item of right around $90,000 in our operating budget right now. We’ll see how this works out and we’ll start utilizing that fund and if it looks like … that’s pulled greatly, we may have to come back to the board and ask for some reallocation of some funds in that overtime,” Overton said.

Blackwater District Supervisor Ronnie Mitchell has consistently called for more school resource officers in the county, a plea that went up again and seemed to gather nationwide momentum following the May 24 mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. In less than three months, decisive action from the county and schools have turned June’s idea — more school resource officers — into reality.

Throughout the last several weeks, Overton has said 20 school resource officers would be ideal: one for each of Franklin County’s 12 elementary schools, three for the middle school, four for the high school and one supervisor to oversee them.

The six new school resource officer positions bring the school division up to 11 total — nine from the sheriff’s office and two from the Rocky Mount Police Department. The number of school resource officers has more than doubled in the last month, but the division is still nine positions short of Overton’s recommendation.

On Monday, Phillip Young was sworn-in as the new chief of Rocky Mount Police Department. Young left the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office to take the position. Given Young’s relationship with the sheriff’s office, Mitchell asked about working with the town of Rocky Mount to alleviate some of the school resource officer burden.

“They’ve got a pretty good pool of police officers,” Mitchell said. “Could they help with Rocky Mount in any way? … That would be fantastic.”

Of course, adding school resource officers is not just about personnel: money is a huge factor.

The funding for the six new school resource officers came to the county as part of a four-year grant under the Virginia DCJS SRO/SSO Incentive Grant Program. The grant will not require a local match this fiscal year, fiscal year 2022-23, but in subsequent years the county will need to cover 40% of the grant, or about $244,000.

It’s not the county’s first time receiving money under the DCJS program; two of the sheriff’s office’s existing school resource officers are partially funded by a previous four-year grant that began in fiscal year 2019-20. That grant runs out after the current fiscal year.

Between the two grants, the county will be on the hook for at least $344,000 annually, starting next year, fiscal year 2023-24. That cost will jump to $661,000 starting in fiscal year 2025-26 — more, if inflation continues and the school resource officers receive pay raises.

County officials and supervisors discussed funding options during a special meeting Monday evening. In July, the school division pledged $300,000 to support school resource officers this fiscal year, although it’s unclear if that will be an ongoing commitment.

“That $300,000 could … possibly be utilized for vehicles, uniforms and equipment for the six SROs … in year one,” County Administrator Chris Whitlow said.

The school division’s federal COVID-19 funds also came up.

“Only $5,600, potentially, from that funding source could be utilized for … startup costs, academy fees and so forth,” Whitlow said.

Then, of course, there’s potentially the cost of adding nine more school resource officer positions.

The recent and ongoing discussions about how to make it happen signal an about-face in policy, which Gills Creek District Supervisor Lorie Smith acknowledged Monday.

Smith said she is “150%” in support of more school resource officers, but worried about the unintended consequences of moving too quickly.

“Why now … unless we are being very reactive to another school shooting? … You’re already running a deficit … and now you’re looking at moving employees into SRO positions,” Smith said. “SROs haven’t been a priority. Why haven’t the sheriff’s office and the school board worked to incrementally prepare for a level of SROs that builds up to where we need to be?”

It seems Franklin County has left behind the post-Columbine apprehension about having armed officers in schools, and the cost — though great — is not the deterrent it once was. At school board and supervisor meetings in June and July, several different residents stated support for more school resource officers. Overton said he has heard the same sentiment in conversations with dozens of community members.

Moreover, Overton, Mitchell and Rocky Mount District Supervisor Mike Carter said, the current level of support from the supervisors and school officials did not previously exist.

“I was on the board at that time and … the chairman and vice chairman were not for it and the superintendent of schools was not for it,” Carter said.

That’s not the case now. Superintendent Bernice Cobbs and Franklin County Board of Supervisors Chairman Ronnie Thompson have stated their support for adding school resource officers to the schools, as has Franklin County Board of Supervisors Vice Chairman Tim Tatum.

A longtime member of law enforcement and the school resource officer-equivalent when Mitchell attended high school, Tatum added a unique perspective to Monday’s discussion. More than just providing protection, he said school resource officers are worth a lifetime of trust.

“They’re also building relationships with these students starting at a young age,” Tatum said. “I do not want those children to be afraid of me, as a police officer, [because] if they ever need me, they’re going to be afraid to come to me. That’s what I see these SROs as. … It’s more than safety. It’s relationships with these kids that help them grow into better, more productive citizens.”