An “11th hour” solution kept police in Hamilton County Schools, but leaders admit there isn’t yet a permanent fix.
Two weeks before the school year began Sheriff Jim Hammond warned that low patrol staffing and funding losses might reduce school resource officer numbers by as many as five.
Three of the deputies had been promoted and were needed to work patrol, the other two SROs were funded by the Hamilton County Board of Education. Preliminary budgets didn’t show money for the positions.
Less than a month later Chattanooga Police Chief Bobby Dodd has agreed to lend two officers for the program, the board of education reworked finances to fund their positions and the Hamilton County Commission added an SRO to Dalewood Middle School, which didn’t have one last year.
Dodd said giving up the officers isn’t easy as his department is down 65 officers with 41 eligible to retire.
Once the Chattanooga officers and the new Dalewood SRO start work there will be 25 SROs staffed by the sheriff, who has a sworn staff of less than 160.
But looking ahead, the sheriff said fully staffing the schools is a budgetary, year-by-year decision.
“At some point I’ve got to decide what is my first obligation as sheriff?” he said. “If I have to cut back on programs it would be SRO. It wouldn’t be popular.”
Two members of the Hamilton County Commission said any future fixes to the SRO funding problem will have to come from the county school’s budget.
“To keep the school resource officers falls on the superintendent and the school board,” Hamilton County Commissioner Warren Mackey said. “They need to kind of be really open and look at where those officers are needed.”
Chairman Fred Skillern said the SROs “ought to be in the school board’s budget.”
“The school system has a habit of only cutting what they can defend,” Skillern said. “They won’t cut someone out of the central office nobody would care about. They would cut the girls’ softball program.”
Sheriff’s Office Lt. Shaun Shepherd oversees the SRO program and said there are schools where he would like to have officers but staffing comes down to funding controlled by other departments.
Brainerd High School principal Charles Joynes said the officers act as a deterrent to outside crime but also build strong connections with students.
His school and Howard School of Academics and Technlogy have two SROs assigned to each them. As Chattanooga police vet applicants they’re currently staffed with one apiece.
The program is valuable for students, staff and faculty, the principal said. “I think that the board, district office, city police and sheriff need to do whatever they need to do,” to keep the officers.