School board looking at other options after county yanks funding for student safety

The Horry County school board on Monday tabled a vote to pay Horry County for school resource officers and directed the superintendent to renegotiate the deal - or find other security.

After abandoning a long-standing agreement between Horry County Schools and Horry County to split the cost of the resourcce officers’ salaries, Horry County in March offered a plan to have the district pay 90 percent of the cost, which would have cost the district $1.77 million.

On Tuesday, the county backed up their stance by refusing to fund 50 percent of the officers’ salaries.

The school district will need three new officers next year to staff three new schools that are being built, and Horry County’s offer included an additional supervisor on top of an existing supervisor in the previous contract for four additional officers, bringing the total number of SROs from 17 to 21.

The new proposal also asked the district to pay for training costs, vehicles, and even iPads for the four new officers. The most recent offer from the county was for the district to pay more than $1.6 million, including vehicle costs.

“When you contract employees, they come already trained,” said school board member Holly Heniford. “I don’t know who you hire for a job that you have to turn around and then train them unless you hired them with the knowledge that you needed to train them.”

The school district did approve $801,000 in the budget for all SROs, including those provided by Horry County, Myrtle Beach, Loris, Conway and Aynor. Board members have not approved additional money for Horry County SROs becuase an agreement has not been reached and budgeted only $592,000 for those officers - an amount budgeted for the officers under the parameters of the old agreement.

Horry County Council Chairman Mark Lazarus told The Sun News last week that the county had “found” an additional $1.5 million to $2 million in tax revenue through more aggressive tax collection.

Horry County Schools Chief Financial Officer John Gardner said that the district bases its projected revenue off “actual receipts,” so that money is already included in the 2017-18 budget, and school board Chairman Joe DeFeo said the aggressive tax collection benefits the county as well.

The district is also incurring more costs due to opening and staffing the three new schools and preparing for 741 new students.

“To state any additional funds could be used specifically for SRO’s [Sic] is premature when we planned on the resources to fund our other initiatives,” said Gardner in an email.

Lazarus said Tuesday that “the law says you cannot pay for SRO officers from the general fund.”

DeFeo said that the SROs are not school employees, are not directly involved in school activities and do not take orders from the school district.

“In almost every county in this state, SROs are provided for by county money,” said DeFeo, who added that he would like the 50-50 split as usual.

According to state law, “The governing body of a municipality or county may upon the request of another governing body or of another political subdivision of the state, including school districts, designate certain officers to be assigned to the duty of a school resource officer and to work within the school systems of the municipality or county.”

DeFeo said it was just as important to protect students as other county citizens.

“I think we should be part of the equation as part of who they should be protecting,” he said. “This has really become about finances and money and who needs to raises taxes. The money’s going to come out of the same pocket no matter who raises the taxes in the long run if that’s what has to be done.”

Heniford said during Monday’s school board meeting that the negotiation was “not moving,” and made a motion, which was approved, to look at other options.

“I’d like to make a motion to table this contract and to give the superintendent the direction to renegotiate this agreement,” she said. “Also I would like for him to seek out other law enforcement departments and or private companies to be able to fill these positions.”

DeFeo said the board would be open to contracting with private firms or any law enforcement agency with the jurisdiction to handle the job, and said if the district went with a private firm, he would want all the officers to be retired law enforcement.

Superintendent Rick Maxey said he doesn’t have a “drop dead date” for the board to make a choice but said the district would need a decision within “the next couple of weeks.”

Lazarus and county attorney Arrigo Carotti could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

This story was originally published June 7, 2017 at 2:19 PM with the headline "School board looking at other options after county yanks funding for student safety."