After months of discussion between Moniteau County R-1 Schools and the city of California about creating a school resource officer position, the Moniteau County Sheriff's Department has joined the conversation.
Sheriff Tony Wheatley addressed the school board Sept. 19 to discuss his office partnering with the school to create the SRO position.
Superintendent Dwight Sanders and the board then compared and contrasted what a partnership would look like with each law enforcement agency.
"Most recently, since our last meeting, the City Council has presented questions to us that they would like answered," Sanders said. "Our subcommittee responded to their seven items, and the entire board reviewed all of those amendments to that MOU (memorandum of understanding) to provide feedback to them.
"We're at a point where, if the board is OK, we'd like to follow up with the city."
Also, since the last school board meeting, conversations with the Moniteau County Sheriff's Department have taken place.
"We took a look at what it would look like if the SRO partnered with the county," Sanders said. "Obviously, the city has jurisdiction over the city and the county would have jurisdiction over the county. Looking at that, there are a pretty good percentage of our students that live outside the city limits."
Sanders said the district identified a sum of $35,000 to fund the SRO position. Of that, $30,000 would stand as a salary with $5,000 acting as "basically an escrow account to cover any unforeseen expenses that would occur," he said. Any expenditure of that account would be approved by the school board, essentially as a savings account.
Sanders said the county expects it would be a partnership from beginning to end when selecting an SRO, while the city expects to be the final decision maker on who would be hired.
Wheatley offered for the sheriff's department to provide screening for the applications in order to save time for the school board.
"The city was looking at having that individual for the months of the end of May, June, July and the first of August," Wheatley said. "That leaves three months where the city would utilize the SRO. I'd like to have (him) as an employee for us the entire year. As we talked about it, the city wanted us to consider having the SRO be used by them for extended breaks."
Time during winter and spring breaks, Sanders suggested, could be used for training purposes.
"They could do training of their own," he said. "We might also want them to provide training for professional development for our staff. That could be a useful way for them to spend that amount of time, to work on our emergency plan, crisis plan and evacuation plan. We could have an officer be in that process, if not be lead of it."
Wheatley discussed further draws the county could offer.
"The differences between city and county is that the county can offer more jurisdiction than the city and the school," he said. "The county doesn't have as much money as the city does; that's the shortfall."
Grant money might be available for the SRO position through the sheriff's department, Wheatley said. Funding for this project is possible because there are open slots on the grant.
"The grants have been going on for eight years," he said. "They're funded through civil process money, and it's statewide. The grants only go to sheriff's offices that make $30,000 or less in office."
Wheatley submitted a proposal to the Moniteau County R-1 School Board of Education.