Marshall Fiscal Court Keeps School Officer Funding

The Marshall County Fiscal Court has apparently figured out a way to settle the School Resource Officer controversy.

After a Tuesday morning rally outside the courthouse in support of the officers, who are sworn to keep students safe at county schools, the fiscal court held a budget workshop. Many who attended the rally were watching as Judge-Executive Kevin Neal proposed a plan he had announced the night before. He wanted to create a new agency to oversee SROs, and believed there was enough money to hire eleven officers instead of eight, with some schools required to share officers. The new plan would allow an officer at every school and three at the high school. 

Commissioners and members of the public have scrutinized Neal's refusal to sign a grant that could have injected money into the budget for officers. Neal said he couldn't sign the grant because of a pre-arranged hire by Sheriff Eddie McGuire, which is prohibited in the grant's language. 

Commissioners Kevin Spraggs, Justin Lamb and Monti Collins indicated their steadfast support for current SROs, who probably would not have been retained under Neal's plan. 

Lamb said, "As I made clear over the last week or so, I couldn't vote for a budget that didn't keep the current funding mechanism for school resource officers, and I think that the commissioners today, we stood united and said we're not going to pass a budget unless that funding mechanism is in there and that we can get school resource officers in every school."

He said he spoke to many who were involved in the system since 2018, and they all agreed it was working, and, "if it ain't broke, why fix it?"

Spraggs said, "We have some great officers that are currently at the schools. A lot of them with special training, a lot of them have been on the force for many years, and we're very fortunate to have them and the relationships they have made with the students and faculty. The students feel like they can come talk to them about issues, and relationships like that are where you get leads on things that might be about to happen - if they feel comfortable with the officers."

After much discussion, the men agreed to keep the SROs under the Sheriff's Department and its budget. Sheriff Eddie McGuire had worked with commissioners to trim as much of his budget as possible so this could happen. Spraggs said the salaries of the three additional officers will be covered by McGuire's cuts, funding found by commissioners, and an increase in the budget of about $30,000. 

Both Spraggs and Lamb told West Kentucky Star, "You get what you pay for," and the fiscal court didn't want to change anything other than increasing the number of officers. 

Spraggs said officials were also able to adequately fund the road department for necessary improvements, even though there have been recent deficits in receipts.

The Fiscal Court will likely approve this budget at its second reading on June 22.