Funding, staffing are hurdles to meeting SRO mandate

As of Aug. 1 every school in the commonwealth of Kentucky is mandated by law to have a school resource officer, or SRO, in the building. In many cases, the resources to make this mandate a reality are in short supply.

House Bill 63 was passed by the General Assembly in the 2022 session and signed into law by Governor Andy Beshear in April. It requires an SRO in every school, but is an unfunded mandate, without any money budgeted by the legislature to pay for these positions.

For many school districts, including Muhlenberg County, this means adding hundreds of thousands in salary and benefits to the payroll without any additional funding from the state to meet the mandate. In Muhlenberg County, the SROs are paid in a partnership with the law enforcement agency providing the officer to the district.

Coming up with the money for additional officers will not be easy. District assistant superintendent Matt Perkins said they are working on funding, including grants and federal dollars, to pay for the addition of officers.

“A one-time cost is one thing, when you’re looking at picking that up yearly, that’s another,” Perkins said. Police chiefs and the sheriff’s office provide some funding, as well as vehicles, uniforms, equipment, and training for the program.

The law requires districts unable to fund the additional officers to work with the office of the State School Security Marshal to create a plan. Perkins said the district is working with that office, which has provided them with grant opportunities.

“We’re working with our local law enforcement agencies and partners to determine the best plan, considering our local resources, to cover all of our schools,” Perkins said.

Working with the Greenville Police Department and the Muhlenberg County Sheriff’s Office, the district will start the year with the most coverage they have ever had, according to Perkins.

“We will have law enforcement presence in all of our schools, every single day,” Perkins said.

Muhlenberg County Sheriff Will Ward said his department supplies two officers for the program, and helps fill in gaps as needed by the district. He has been working with school officials for months to develop a plan.

“During those discussions, the money is the biggest thing. There was no money attached to the bill, and the bill says it’s not up to local government to pay for it,” Ward said. The school districts must come up with the funding, according to the wording in the bill.

Ward said he has applied for a federal grant worth $175,000 allocated over three years, to help with the cost of providing the district with SROs. “We’ve been sending emails to the sheriff’s association, the PADD (Pennyrile Area Development District) office, everybody that we can, to try to find any money out there to help fund this, to help bridge that gap,” Ward said.

The SROs walk the hallways during class, making sure all classroom doors are locked. They check the parking lots, and act as security officers throughout the day.

“One of the biggest things for our department is building that relationship with students,” Ward said. “It pays tenfold over a lifetime.” Ward said building trust with students also allows them to be more comfortable talking to law enforcement when they need to.

Taking an officer off regular patrol and assigning them to be an SRO isn’t a simple scheduling problem. There is a shortage of people entering the law enforcement field and local police chiefs regularly report being short an officer or two, and struggling to stay fully staffed.

Several law enforcement officials mirrored the same sentiment, that fewer and fewer people are entering the field, creating shortages in the labor pool felt across every agency.

“At one time, we’d have an opening and we’d have 50 or 60 applicants. Now we’re getting one or two,” Ward said.

Greenville provides one SRO to the district, and they are working with the sheriff’s department to cover schools in the district by having officers visit schools throughout the day.

Central City provides one officer, who beginning this year is stationed full time at Central City Elementary School. Last year, the officer traveled between all five elementary schools in the district, Central City Mayor Tony Armour said. This year, he made the decision to keep the officer at the city’s only school.

“It’s what we needed to do to keep our city and that school safe,” Armour said.

A large portion of the officer’s salary and benefits are paid by the city, and the city provides his car and equipment, Armour said. “That’s Central City tax dollars paying him, so we thought that was the best thing to do, to keep him out here at the elementary school.”

Armour said they will work with the school district when they can to help fill gaps in coverage.

Although the legislation mandates all schools comply by Aug. 1, many school districts are falling behind that deadline. Districts that have not met the mandate must report to the Center for School Safety no later than Nov. 1 of each year, to report to the Center for School Safety the number and placement of the resource officers, including the source of funding for each officer.