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Morristown City Council at its recent meeting voted unanimously to approve an inter-local cooperation agreement with Hamblen County government for Hamblen County School Resource Officer funding in the amount of $300,000, to be utilized for equipment, training and insurance.

The County is establishing a School Resource Officer division in order to provide an SRO at each and every school located in Hamblen County, which will result in the hiring of 17 SROs, bringing the total in the new division to 21.

The County will provide a majority of the necessary costs required for the officers but is seeking assistance from the City for specific items related to the initial costs.

Specifically, the City will contribute $150,000.00 in fiscal year 2023-2024, and another $150,000.00 in fiscal year 2024-2025.

The two year financial commitment will be provided by the City to the County for the startup of the SRO division and will be used by the County for initial equipment costs for the 21 SROs as the County determines is necessary, such as equipment, weapons, uniform, training for the SROs, and administrative costs, such as insurance coverage for their vehicles and workers’ compensation insurance premium costs.

The funding provided by the City to the County is for a portion of the expenses, and the City is not responsible for the entire costs associated with them.

City Administrator Tony Cox, speaking on behalf of city government staff, said, “We have discussed this with the county and we recommend approval.”

Councilmember Tommy Pedigo requested a clarification: “This has nothing to do with payroll; this has to do with equipment, training and insurance.”

“That’s correct; we do not pay for any people,” Cox responded.

The city held two Council work sessions prior to the vote. During the July 20 session, the subject of exactly where the funding will come from was discussed.

In response to Councilmember Kay Senter’s question as to whether the city’s Opioid settlement funds could be used for that purpose, Cox explained that the Opioid funding has “generally been earmarked” for capital projects and most recently, the money went straight to the current construction project on Thompson Creek Road.

“You can certainly allocate the money anyway you want, but the agreement you have before you does not talk about how it is funded, it talks about the amount of the contribution,” Cox said.

“When do we decide where that money comes from? Or have you already decided?” Senter asked.

Cox said his recommendation would be to freeze the two City-funded SRO positions currently at the high schools and use that savings to fund the contribution.

“When we ‘freeze’ those, does that pull them out of the city police force?” Senter asked. “Because before, when we had city officers serving as school resource officers, the Chief (MPD Chief Roger Overholt) could pull them even during the day and even during the evenings, if we had an event …” she said.

Cox replied, “That’s correct. It would have an impact on overall staffing. Of course, it’s been a very long time since we’ve had fully staffed positions anyway – so I don’t know how much actual impact it will have on operations. But if we get in a situation where we find that those two positions are critical, we can always go back and revisit where we can find additional savings. An easy way to go about it would be to freeze those two positions.”

After a bit more discussion, regarding whether there would be any city-funded officers placed at schools, Cox stated: “SROs are not our employees, ever, going forward … They will be county deputies from now on.”

Senter said, “Just help me understand. We are freezing positions to provide the $150,000 (per year) to do this support, and it’s a two-year thing and then it’s over” – to which Cox responded, “Yes.”

Senter: “So in essence, what we are doing – since they aren’t city personnel ever – we are just supporting. They are not taking, literally, our employees; it’s positions that are vacated … so what you have then is, if we do (‘How many are we down now?’ to which Cox replied ‘5.’) or are able to hire the 5 people, then we would have to find the money to pay them.”

Councilmember Chris Bivens asked, “Is there no other way to get it than to (lose) employees?”

In response, Cox said “Well, again, we’re just earmarking two positions that have been vacant anyway. In the past, we have used those savings for other things in the department. In the next two years, you’ll be using them for the school resource officers. And it’s not written in granite that you do that. If we have a problem with operations down the road we can revisit it and identify other ways to fund it.”

Bivens: “After the governor (Gov. Bill Lee) came out and said, ‘Every school will have a resource officer (‘Paid for by the state,’ Council Member Tommy Pedigo added)’, we’re paying $300,000 – for the state. I know kids’ safety is very important to everybody – to everybody. But he makes that statement, why are we (putting) up $300,000 for the next two years?”

Cox referred to the previous work session during which he said information provided by the county indicated they feel they will be short more than $1 million in terms of trying to equip and train the officers.

“They’re asking the city to help support that, as well as additional money from the school board,” Cox said. “As for the governor’s statement, you’ll have to take that up with him. I know that we don’t think they can pay for the people and the equipment necessary to do the job with the money that’s coming from the state.”

According to information provided by the Hamblen County School Board, state funding for 16 SROs ($927,768.000) is still pending approval by the state.

The work session discussion turned back to the $150,000 per year.

“Are you saying that $75,000 for each officer equals the $150,000?” Senter asked “If they were to engage full time with us, would $75,000 pay full benefits and salary for the year?”

Cox responded, “With the particular officers we sign, no, but it’s a reasonable approximation for the average officer.”

“So is this coming out of the police department budget, the $150,000?” Senter asked.

Cox said, “In terms of the County, I doubt it would come out of the police department budget. It would be a contract-for-services that would be inter-governmental, out of the general fund. The offsetting savings would come from the Police Department, because we are not hiring two positions. If we find in three weeks or three months that we are having a problem, we can come back, revisit that, find out how we can pay for this obligation with a contribution and still hire those people. And we will try and come up with another solution. At this point and time, this is the cleanest way to fund the contribution.”

Senter added, “In the past when we have been down employees in a department – and I think we did that with insurance one year – we were able to put some of that in the budget because we had monies that we were not spent because we didn’t have a full complement of employees in a department. Theoretically, that’s what we have here.”

Cox said, “Turnover in the police department, as you know, is fairly predictable and high in volume and we have over the years used those savings for additional equipment and other projects requested by the police department; we’d come to you and ask you to appropriate something coming from the savings in the department. And in this situation, we’re asking for savings to be allocated to contribution.”

Councilmember Joseph Senter asked, “Is the turnover of the police department really about the money or is it about something else?”

Cox responded, “I don’t think it’s really about the money, but that’s my personal (opinion). You’re asking people to work very difficult hours, 12-hour shifts, and working nights on a regular basis, you’re dealing with the public and that’s not a terribly pleasant job sometimes and the overall feeling of the world about law enforcement is not really positive. So there are a lot of things working against people. A lot of times we’re not losing officers going to be police officers someplace else, we’re losing police officers who are going to do other kinds of work.”

Councilmember Bob Garrett expressed his agreement with Cox, stating that the stress they experience is considerable.

(Joseph) Senter added, “Right now, everybody talks about PTSD. You don’t have to be in the military to experience it. PTSD, you can deal with that every day. I’m sure some of the police officers have that.”

Cox: “The state passed a law this year that firefighters that (are diagnosed with) PTSD, it is presumed to be job-related and covered under the city’s workers comp,” Cox said. “The things you deal with in the field can be traumatic and challenging, there is no question about that.”