The Smith County Commission voted to adopt a resolution at their June 25, 2018 meeting that would fund three additional School Resource Officers from the Smith County General Fund. See resolution below:
Currently, Smith County has SROs in 6 of the 9 schools. Funding for 5 of the SROs (including equipment, car, insurance, benefits, etc…) comes from the Smith County General Fund and the Smith County Board of Education refunds the County for the salaries of those 5 officers. The 6th officer is fully funded by the Town of Gordonsville.
County Commissioners debated and discussed the topic for over 30 minutes. Several County Commissioners asked why the School Board wouldn’t fund these additional SROs because they have nearly a $10 million surplus in their General Fund. Commissioners also discussed hiring private security instead of Sheriff’s Deputies and that all of the SROs should fall under one chain of command. See video of the full discussion below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lA0tnpWTWLU
The Smith County Commission voted 18 to 2 to adopt the resolution to fund the three additional SROs. See votes below:
- Mark Jones – Yes
- Glenn Reece – Yes
- Larry Eddlemon – Yes
- Billy Bass – Yes
- Jimmie Winfree – Yes
- Carolyn Boles – Yes
- Pam Billington – Yes
- Shannon Minchey – Yes
- Matthew Inyart – Yes
- Ron Cowan – Yes
- Linda Nixon – Yes
- Billy Woodard – Yes
- Barbara Kannapel – Yes
- Charles Kent – Yes
- Joey Nixon – Yes
- Tommy Bane – No
- Dennis Hackett – Yes
- Thomas Gibbs – Yes
- David Gross – Yes
- Frank Woodard – No
[wdca_ad id=”11484″ ]
[wdca_ad id=”11404″ ]
