Sheriff wants to provide school resource officers

MT. PLEASANT — Henry County Sheriff Rich McNamee is waiting on an answer from Henry County Supervisors after requesting an additional deputy for his office to fill school resource officer needs in the county.

McNamee started his request by taking the supervisors back to January when he presented a cut down budget in response to their requests to make cuts because of House File 718.

This house file requires Henry County to drop its property tax levies from $4.83 per $1,000 taxable valuation to $3.50 per $1,000 taxable valuation by 2029, and according to the supervisors this means significant cuts to budgets across the county.

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“You asked me to make about $105,000 cut,” McNamee reminded the board. “I came in January and presented you with about four times that by taking a very serious leap and cutting some open positions.”

When presenting his budget to the Board of Supervisors in January, his proposed cuts for the Sheriff’s Office came to over $500,000 thanks to careful accounting and creative thinking. As part of this presentation, however, McNamee asked the board to consider adding a deputy to the Sheriff’s Office in light of school resource officer commitments currently with New London and possibly other commitments in the future.

“Ultimately, I heard back from the county auditor that you honored my cuts, but decided no on the 14th deputy,” McNamee said at Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting. “So, that’s why I am here today, to ask you to reconsider that decision.”

According to McNamee, following his initial presentation to the board, he has had conversations with Winfield-Mt. Union Community School District which would like to add a half-time school resource officer. Additionally, New London CSD would like to move its school resource officer from half time to full time.

As a partnership with the sheriff’s department, New London would sign an E28 Agreement to pay two-thirds of the total cost toward a deputy to fill much like it did for the last school year. With a full-time school resource officer, it would take on more of the financial responsibility.

According to McNamee, the agreements with WMU and New London would generate approximately $105,000 of revenue which would more than cover the total cost of adding a deputy to the Henry County Sheriff’s Office.

Additionally, the E28 agreement outlines that if an event occurs that the deputy needs to assist with outside of the school during school hours, the deputy may leave to do so. McNamee also stated for the first year the salary of the deputy could also be covered by a FAST grant and then partially covered for multiple years following.

McNamee listed several reasons he is passionately pursuing adding a deputy to meet this need.

“In my mind is simple logic,” McNamee said. “Jan. 4, the city of Perry and Perry school district had a shooting. I did a little checking. Roughly, there has been six active shooters in the last couple of months that resulted in about 20 people dying and many injured. “

“This is a school safety issue,” he continued. “As a Sheriff of Henry County covering border to border, side to side, I think that school safety is something we definitely have to attack and make sure we’re proactive in.”

McNamee also mentioned that legislators may be discussing the topic of requiring school resource officers but stated that was not a motivating factor.

“Regardless of what a bill does, I really think this is that important,” McNamee said.

Additionally, McNamee laid out statistics from the sheriff’s office providing a school safety officer in the New London. From the first month of the program in New London last September to now, the call volume for New London CSD is approximately one-third what it had been, McNamee informed the board.

“[New London CSD]’s truancy is down, assaults are down, illegal narcotics and alcohol in the New London School District are down,” McNamee stated. “Simply because of his presence and his active approach to taking care of this.”

McNamee told the board how the currently New London School Resource Officer provides valuable training for active shooters, drug education, and being prepared for disasters.

County residents present at the meeting also raised their voices on the topic stating the did not understand why the board wouldn’t agree.

“If the school system is reimbursing for the officer to be there, to me, it seems like a no-brainer,” one gentleman stated.

“I guess I’m not seeing what the hang up is,” a woman in the crowd told the supervisors.

“I don't think it's going to get any better,” another man said. “It's going to get worse.”

Unfortunately, the budgets were already submitted to the state and cannot be changed, though, County Auditor Shelly Barber did say that the budget could be amended after July 1. While an amendment would then take the needed additional money from county reserves, changing the budget outside of that would be impossible with the need to continue to cut the property tax levy.

The supervisors raised multiple objections to McNamee’s request.

“We’re using county resources,” Supervisor Greg Moeller stated. “I get helping the school district out. I don’t have issue with helping them out. My priority would be for the cities to budget more money so that they can hire to provide those services in the cities where the school facilities are located.”

While McNamee said he understood the perspective, he did not agree with it.

“I am the Sheriff of Henry County and you are the supervisors for Henry County,” he responded. “Those students aren’t just from the city of New London or the city of Winfield. … They're in Henry County and I'm the Henry County Sheriff and I think we should take care of every one of those kids. And if Mt. Pleasant didn't have a school resource officer, I'd be talking to you about Mt. Pleasant school district also.”

Lindeen asked for additional time so he could pursue talking to the legislators about any possible legislation that could change the situation.

When Moeller asked the board if they were ready to vote on allowing McNamee to hire an additional deputy, Lindeen replied that he would not vote on it until he got more information.

Despite laying out financials, explaining the benefits, and passionately asking the board to reconsider adding an extra deputy to cover school resource officer needs in the count, McNamee did not receive an answer from the board. Through a repeated a request from McNamee, however, they will revisit the topic at the April 2 Board of Supervisors meeting at 10:15 a.m.

Comments: AnnaMarie.Ward@southeastiowaunion.com