The Oconee County Board of Commissioners, the Board of Education, and Sheriff James Hale came together on Wednesday to establish a 16-person division within the Sheriff’s Office to provide School Resource Officers (SROs) in each of the county’s 12 schools.
The Memorandum of Understanding signed at the end of the meeting was the result of discussions among the three entities that began immediately after the Sept. 4 shooting at Apalachee High School in Barrow County that left two students and two teachers dead and seven others injured.
The Sheriff’s Office has been providing SROs to the county’s two high schools since that date, an outgrowth of its previous agreement to provide security at the county’s schools through a system rotating deputies outside the schools.
While Hale applauded the collaboration of the two Boards with his Office in reaching the agreement on the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in his comments to both Boards on Wednesday, clear differences between the two Boards were in evidence.
New Board Member Adam Hammond raised questions about the cost sharing agreement and about the size of what amounts to a School Resource Officer Division within the Sheriff’s Department.
At School Board meetings on Dec. 9 and Jan. 13, Kevin Yancey, Director of Student Services at Oconee County Schools, said he was exploring, at the request of the School Board, the possibility of the school system creating “a school-based police force” under school control as an alternative to an MOU with the Sheriff.
The Sheriff is elected directly by voters, but his salary and those of his deputies are part of the county budget and under the control by the Board of Commissioners.
The Board of Education is responsible for the budget of Oconee County Schools.
Citizen Angela Martin spoke at the Wednesday meeting in praise of the agreement, but she said she had tried to discuss the need for school resource officers prior to the tragedy at Apalachee High School and “the door was closed multiple times by multiple people--leaders within the school system.”
Daniell On Terms Of Agreement
Daniell began the meeting on Monday at the Commission Chamber in the county Administrative Building by thanking Board of Education Chair Michael Ransom and Sheriff Hale for the “many hours” spent working on what he called “an agreement for a school resource officer program.”
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Hale Before School Board (L), Board Of Commissioners (R) 1/29/2025 |
The agreement covers the period from the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding at the meeting on Wednesday until June 30 of 2026.
It is to be automatically renewed for one year terms beginning on July 1 of each year unless either party opts out at least 30 days prior to the expiration date. Any of the parties can give a 60 day notice to terminate at any time.
“This is a SRO program with up to 16 deputies in order to have one SRO in each of the 12 schools,” Daniell said.
“Sheriff Hale can begin recruiting for these positions tonight after passage,” Daniell said.
“Just so everybody understands,” he continued. “This is not an overnight program getting that many people in the job. Recruiting law enforcement is very difficult.”
“But as quickly as he can do it,” Daniell said, “I guarantee you he's going to do it.”
“Reimbursement for the program costs will occur at least monthly,” Daniell said. “Cost share will be 90 percent for the Board of Education, 10 percent for the Board of Commissioners.”
Cofer On Terms Of Agreement
When Daniell finished, School Board Chair Ransom asked Justin Cofer, Chief Human Resources Officer for Oconee County Schools, to “present for the Board.”
Cofer offered a time line of events leading up to the meeting on Wednesday, saying “on Sept. 16th, you authorized the superintendent to collaborate with Sheriff Hale to develop an agreement that would establish a comprehensive law enforcement presence at all 12 of our schools.”
Cofer said he and Yancey presented a draft MOU for the Board’s review in November that “was provided in collaboration with the Sheriff's Office” and that the Board formally approved the MOU in December.
The first draft of the MOU stipulated that the Board of Education would pay Hale between $375,233 and $557,579 for 180 working days per officer during the school year. The approved MOU did not stipulate any costs.
At the meeting on Wednesday, Cofer reminded the Board that at that December meeting “you then requested official action from both the Sheriff's Office and the Board of Commissioners.” At that meeting, Cofer said legal counsel had recommended the inclusion of the Board of Commissioners.
“Discussions between the Board of Education, the Board of Commissioners, the superintendent, his team, and the sheriff and his staff have resulted in the MOU that is before each of you today,” he said.
“The agreement prioritizes the safety and security of students, faculty, and staff by assigning deputies to serve as SROs at each of our schools,” Cofer said, “as well as provides four command staff to support the 12 deputies assigned to the schools for a total of 16 deputies working under the SRO program.”
“The agreement also ensures that sole focus of the deputies remains the protection of our students and staff, as they will not be called upon for other law enforcement needs during the school day,” he said.
“The SROs will work for the Sheriff's Office at least 25 days out of the year during times the school is not in session,” he continued.
Cofer said the cost to the Oconee County Schools for the remainder of this school year, “assuming the program was fully staffed,” will be $1,252,153, with the estimated total cost to the schools for a full year being $2,234,307 based on current expenses.
Hale On Agreement
Daniell next invited Sheriff Hale to come to the podium.
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Hale, Commissioners Saxon, Mark Thomas 1/29/2025 |
“This has been a long, long process,” Hale said.
“My job as the sheriff is to secure this county,” he said. “Your job is to help me do so. I believe that being able to do that work collaborative, between the school system and the county commissioners, is honestly my goal.”
Hale said he was assigned by former Sheriff Scott Berry to be “the school safety liaison between the Sheriff's Office and the school system. And we worked every year from that year forward, something has improved with school safety every single year between the Sheriff's Office and the school system.”
“I don't think anybody can be lost on the fact that our schools are very safe,” he said. “We have very good people that live here in this county. We have a lot of things going on.”
“Obviously September of this past year changed things for us,” he said. “Right outside in our backyard is where something like this happened.”
“I don't believe that we're here to react to things anymore,” he said. “We have got to be proactive.”
“One of my goals in this program here is to have one of those deputies in every one of the schools who has been trained in behavioral threat assessment in conjunction with the school system’s staff and faculty there to be able to prevent these things from happening.”
Hale said he thinks “creating an entire division at the sheriff's office” will allow him to have replacements as needed when someone is out and will be “doing it right the first time instead of coming back in a couple of years and trying to fix what we didn't get right.”
Questions From Boards
When Daniell called for questions from members of either of the Boards, Hammond, who joined the Board earlier this month as Post 4 Board Member, asked Hale to explain the decision to have a division of 16 members when the School Board had requested only 12 and had created its MOU for 12.
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Horton 1/29/2025 |
“So you have 12 schools,” Hale said. “You have one deputy at each one of those schools. If we sign an MOU that we're going to supply that one deputy per school and one of them calls out sick, well where am I going to get the one that's going to replace that one on that daily basis?”
Someone with the flu can be out a week, he said. “So am I going pull that from the patrol division to take him off from answering the call of service over here for the alarm call at the Walmart for the umpteenth time just to put him into school?”
“Or am I going to make sure that I have enough people to start with to fill in that gap in case that happens?” he asked. The four-person command staff allows for that, he said.
Daniell told Hammond that the school shooting in Barrow County was on Sept. 4 and “James was on call with me on Sept. 5 talking about implementing the program.”
“It was 16 that day,” Daniell said. “It's been 16 continuously. Our first meeting with Mr. Ransom and I was Oct. 4. So the whole time has been consistent.”
“That number's been there for several years,” Hale interjected. “When we talk every year as to what it would look like if we were to try to implement something.”
Hale said those discussions had allowed him to assign a deputy to each of the county’s two high schools immediately after the shooting at Apalachee High School.
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Parrish 1/29/2025 |
Commissioner Chuck Horton said he wanted the public to know that “the county Commission never asked for any money from the BOE to do what he had to do and put those deputies where they needed to be. Money had nothing to do with it.”
“I think some models that we have looked at earlier, just from the Board of Education point of view, were different,” Board Vice Chair Amy Parrish said. “But as you alluded here and as you communicated to us, we're Oconee County.”
“We're trying to do something different and not trying to just throw something at the wall and fill a need but build it the right way,” she said.
Public Comment
When Daniell asked for responses from those in the audience, Stephen Aleshire, who ran unsuccessfully for Post 5 on the Board of Education in the May Republican Party primary, said “It sounds like the school resource officers will be assigned sort of semi permanently to a place, and I kind of wonder about familiarity and complacency.”
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Martin 1/29/2025 |
He suggested rotation might be used to offset that problem.
Angela Martin told the two Boards that “almost two years ago I was first made aware of the lack of SROs, and not only was it a surprise of me, it was a surprise that most people that I've talked to.”
The school shootings in Nashville and Apalachee High School also “have made us aware that we do not have SROs,” she said.
“I sought to understand why that was, why we didn't have SROs, and then also how policy is affected in our local school system,” she said. “And a lot of that was just kind of trudging through and asking question after question.”
“The door was closed multiple times by multiple people--leaders within the school system,” she said.
“I hope that the jobs get posted tonight, which is so exciting” she said. “A lot of us have asked for a time line. So now we have that time line. Its going to begin tonight and we're thrilled to help hear that.”
“Thank you for the work,” she said. “I know a lot of what you all do is thankless, and so I'm going to take the opportunity to say thank you for your time.”
Exchange Between Hammond And Daniell
When Martin finished her comments, Hammond said he wanted to speak again.
“I appreciate you and your passion about this issue and all the parents out there who have really kept this flame alive over the years,” he said to Martin. “And that passion underscores what I think many of us want, which is SROs in the schools and ASAP.”
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Toole, Hammond, Hammock (L-R) 1/29/2025 |
While Hammond said he was going to vote for approval of the MOU, “I'm not in love with the funding structure for this. If we compare other counties around us, it's much more of a 50/50 split.”
“I'm not saying it should be 50/50,” Hammond said. “But I certainly think as we compare to other school districts, it would be great if, as we look towards the future and as we clear the spirit of goodwill and collaboration, we could look at having a larger buy in for both sides.”
In response, Daniell, referring to a document provided by Oconee County Schools, said that “when you look at the document that's created from 14 school systems, based on what was written here,” only two were 50/50 splits in funding, and a third has changed to that subsequently.
“The school security you've experienced over the years has been totally funded by the Board of Commissioners, and none of that goes away,” Daniell said.
“And we're also not allocating any calls related to investigations division, which comes in a lot of times to carry things through,” he said. “We have a whole 9 1 1 system that monitors your emergency response system.”
“Your cameras communicate to the deputies when things are happening,” Daniell continued. “Bring in other resources, fire, rescue, ambulance. So there are a lot of expenses.”
“Even the amount of time the sheriff and the chief deputy spend on this program are not allocated out either,” he said.
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Daniell 1/29/2025 |
Daniell said the 90/10 split, which is based on time the deputies will be in the schools during the year, is “an objective way” to look at the expenses.
“I think it is great that the Sheriff's Office is going to get some incredible infrastructure built out because of this and that's going to come because of money that is earmarked and anticipated for schools and for school safety,” Hammond said.
“Actually the infrastructure is already in place,” Daniell said. “Like I said, we've been doing it for years.”
“But there's money for new equipment and new.” Hammond said.
Daniell interrupted and said “that will be used by the SROs at 90 percent of the time that they're active on duty. Ten percent will be in the county, based on our agreement. Like I said, it's an objective way of looking at it.”
“I'm not saying we should do 50/50,” Hammond said. “I think 70/30, something in that sphere will be something good to work toward.”
Call For Motion
Daniell turned to his four fellow commissioners and asked for a motion to adopt the Memorandum Of Understanding.
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Parrish, Ransom, Daniell, Horton (L_R) Hale (Back To Camera) Document Signing 1/29/2025 |
Horton made the motion, seconded by Commissioner Mark Saxon.
The vote was unanimous. Board Chair Daniell votes only in the case of a tie.
At that point, Superintendent Jason Branch, who had been sitting in the front row in the audience, moved to the podium and said “Board members, as requested, we prepared the MOU and would recommend approval at this time.”
Post 5 Board Member Brock Toole made the motion, and Post 3 Board Member Ryan Hammock seconded.
The vote was 5 to 0.
“With that, I think we'll just go ahead and sign it,” Daniell said.
Sheriff Hale came forward to join Daniell and Ransom in signing the document.
Video
The video is of the entire joint meeting of the Oconee County Board of Education and Board of Commissioners on Jan. 29.
Discussion of the MOU begins at 1:15 in the video.
Cofer began his comments at 3:50 in the video.
Hale began his comments at 7:56 in the video.
Comments of the Board members begins at 11:29.
Public comment begins at 19:10 in the video.
The exchange between Hammond and Daniell begins at 24:10.
The actual votes are at 28:44.
1 comment:
Who were Cofer and Yancey negotiating with if they brought back 2 (two) memoranda of agreements that called for 12 SRO’s, when clearly that number has been 16 since the beginning?
Who on the school board asked for an investigation into a school police force? That was certainly never asked for in open session.
And Mr. Hammond, cost splits are irrelevant. 90/10 or 50/50, 100% of the cost is borne by taxpayers. The bulk of the cost should be reflected in the budget of the consuming entity.
This was just a clear show of the difference between a functioning board (BOC) and one that is suffering from executive capture (BOE).
Ian Taylor
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