A
SPECIAL JOINT MEETING/SAFETY SUMMIT
WITH
THE LAKE COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD
JUNE
4, 2008
The Lake County Board of County
Commissioners met in a Special Joint Meeting with the Lake County School Board,
municipal government officials, and law enforcement officers on Wednesday, June
4, 2008, at 1:00 p.m.., in the Magnolia Room, Lake-Sumter Community College,
Leesburg, Florida. Commissioners present at the meeting were: Welton G.
Cadwell, Chairman; Jennifer Hill, Vice Chairman; Debbie Stivender; Elaine
Renick; and Linda Stewart. Lake County
School Board Members present were Larry Metz, Chairman; Kyleen Fischer, Vice
Chairperson; Scott Strong; Cindy Barrow; and Jimmy Conner. Others present were Sanford A. “Sandy”
Minkoff, County Attorney; Cindy Hall, County Manager; Wendy Taylor, Executive
Office Manager, County Manager’s Office; Doug Krueger, Lake County Budget
Director; Susan Boyajan, Deputy Clerk; Lake County Sheriff Gary Borders; Sgt.
Chris Bell, Umatilla P.D.; Capt. Todd Luce, Lake County Sheriff’s Office (LCSO);
Capt. Earll Bean, Leesburg P.D.; Officer Keith Reyes, School Resource Officer, Lady
Lake P.D.; Mark Isom, Director of Public
Safety, City of Fruitland Park; Steve Graham, Clermont Police Chief.; Chief
Steve Allen, Mascotte P.D.; Lt. Jesse Baker, Groveland P.D.; Chief Curtis
Robbins, Howey-in-the-Hills P.D.; Wayne S. Longo, LCSO; George Whittaker,
Leesburg P.D.; Paula Crow, Community Resource Officer, Tavares P.D.; Fred Cobb,
Director of Public Safety, City of Eustis; Randy Scoggins, Chief of Police, Mount
Dora P.D.; John Drury, Tavares City Administrator; Paul Berg, Eustis City
Manager; Lori Humphrey, Project Manager, Lake
County Shared Services Network;
B. Grassel, Lake County Education Association President; Ralph Bowers,
Fruitland Park City Manager; Ed Smyth, Deputy City Manager, Leesburg; Lynn
Jones, Safe Schools Supervisor, Lake County Schools; Pernell Mitchell, Security
Manager for Lake County Schools; Carol MacLeod, Chief
Financial Officer, Lake County Schools; Steve Johnson, School Board Attorney; Natalie
Challenger, Clerk to the School Board; and Anna Cowin, Superintendent, Lake
County Schools.
CALL
TO ORDER, MOMENT OF SILENCE, AND PLEDGE
Mr. Larry Metz, Chairman, Lake County
School Board, called the meeting to order, called for a moment of silence, and
led the Pledge of Allegiance.
INTRODUCTIONS
AND OPENING COMMENTS
Mr. Metz thanked everyone for being there at the joint
special meeting and expressed appreciation for the graciousness of Lake-Sumter
Community College (LSCC) for allowing them to use the Magnolia Room, stating
that he would be sending a letter to Dr. Charles Mojock, President of LSCC,
expressing their thanks for that. He welcomed
everyone and asked those who would be participating in the discussion to introduce
themselves. He stated that the School
Board of Lake County wanted to bring everyone together there to review their
School Resource Deputy Program and to discuss with their partners in the
community ways to strengthen that program.
SCHOOL RESOURCE OFFICER PROGRAM
REVIEW
Ms.
Kyleen Fischer, Vice Chairperson, Lake County School Board stated that School
Board Member Scott Strong brought to their attention the fact that they could
benefit from open dialogue to discuss the needs of the Lake County School
System. She commented that they understood
that it took that partnership to make an effective safe plan for the County.
Mr.
Pernell Mitchell, Security Manager for Lake County Schools, mentioned that some
of the law enforcement executives in attendance at the meeting had served in
the capacity of school resource officers and DARE instructors. He explained that the school resource officer
program was a community policing approach practiced in a school environment
which had a nationally recommended school population of 800 to 1600
students. He commented that some of the benefits of the
school resource officers (SRO) were that they were familiar with the layout of
the campus, the student population, and the staff; knew who belonged and did
not belong on campus; and knew what problems have already taken place on campus
and what they needed to do to be proactive.
He related that the SRO had three main functions, which were as a law
enforcement officer, teacher, and counselor, and they were very carefully
selected for their position. He further
noted that they would need to be someone who was willing to work with children,
was a positive role model, and had an approachable demeanor. He also commented that they were very
fortunate to be working with the Sheriff’s Department and believed that they
had a very strong program, with 26 deputies that the Sheriff’s Office was
currently providing on the campuses. He
also expressed appreciation to the Town of Lady Lake for putting an officer in
the Villages Elementary School. He
commented that the schools received a tremendous benefit from the presence of
officers on campus, but law enforcement also was receiving a tremendous benefit
of investigative tools and information from students on crimes occurring out in
the community which helped solve cases.
He stated that they wanted to make sure they were all on the same page to
ensure that this very valuable program continued in Lake County.
Sheriff
Gary Borders stated that they had a deputy sheriff in every middle and high
school in the County, with some schools having more than one, and currently
they had 24 deputies under contract with the School Board and one deputy that
was on a grant. He pointed out that
there were three sergeants, one lieutenant, and three canine deputies assigned
to the schools that were not contracted with the School Board and that the
Sheriff’s Office paid for as supervisors and as relief for the school resource
deputies that were on vacation or sick.
He opined that having deputy sheriffs in the schools was definitely a
valuable and necessary program and that they were great liaisons between the
school itself and the Sheriff’s Office, with the safety of the schools being
paramount. He commented that they have
found it to be very successful, and they were very particular about who they
selected as the school resource deputy and were very proud of this unit. He also noted that the other numbers that
were not included were the five officers that taught the DARE program in the
elementary schools throughout the County that were funded by the Sheriff’s
Office and drug seized money. He
acknowledged that they received some good intelligence and investigative tools
from this program, and they wanted the students to form good relationships with
deputies.
SCHOOL
RESOURCE OFFICER PROGRAM FUNDING SOURCES FOR FY 2008-09
Ms.
Fischer emphasized that all of the School Board members valued the school
resource officers, but commented that funding was an issue. She related that Commr. Cadwell came to the
Board with a written request and had dialogue with Mr. Metz regarding this
issue.
Commr.
Cadwell commented that the County Commission had been willing partners all
along in this and that there was never a question of whether they had the same
goal of safe schools in mind. He pointed
out that because of budget constraints, they would have to find new, innovative
ways of operating that were different than what they had done in the past. He opined that he thought that it would be a
benefit and would make sense for local police officers to be in the high
schools. He mentioned that the Sheriff
submitted his budget for next year, which contained only a four percent
increase that would probably not even cover the increase in the fuel cost.
Ms.
Carol MacLeod, Chief Financial Officer for Lake County Schools, stated that they
received funding to help support this program through the Safe Schools program
that was funded through the Florida Legislature. She reported that they currently were paying
approximately half the cost of the salary and benefits of the sheriff’s
deputies that were under contract to be on their campus, which was currently a
total of about $825,000. She stated that
they were provided only approximately $525,000 under the Safe Schools program,
with the School Board’s general operating fund absorbing the other
$300,000. She pointed out that the
School Board was experiencing the same budget cuts that the County Commission
was.
Ms.
Lynn Jones, Supervisor of the Safe Schools program, handed out a chart which
showed the number and percentages of students in middle and high school that
resided in the city limits in each of the municipalities. The second chart in the handout showed that
same information on the right side of the pie chart, with the left side showing
the number of students from the unincorporated area, which made up 52 percent
of the total number of children attending Lake County middle and high
schools. The third chart looked at a model
showing a potential way of sharing costs of the school resource officer pro-rated
between the County Commission, the School Board, and the municipalities using
the percentages presented in the previous chart. She also reported that they contacted six
surrounding counties to look at the cost that their school districts were
paying percentage-wise as well as looking at the cost and timeframe that it
covered for the officers or deputies that they hired, and pointed out the
handout illustrating this as well as other information related to this
issue. She noted that in Seminole
County, 50 percent of the yearly cost of the deputies, including salary,
benefits, and training was paid, which was what Lake County’s district has paid
in the past. She went on to report that
Marion County paid 50 percent of the middle school SRO costs and 100 percent of
the high school costs, and went through some of the other County’s statistics represented
on the handout which showed a range between 50 and 100 percent, with Volusia
County including vehicle expenses.
Ms.
Cindy Hall, County Manager, clarified that the Sheriff’s budget position to
them included $2,134,465 for the school resource officer program, which would
come out to $85,000 per officer when divided by 25 officers. She commented that the figure she believed
the School Board was working from was an initial estimate that came forward in
a letter from the Chairman.
Sheriff
Borders noted that those figures were based on what they currently were doing
at the time that their budget was due last Friday.
Superintendent
Anna Cowin clarified that the figures listed in the charts on the handouts only
included salary and benefits, but not vehicles.
Ms.
Hall specified that the total cost of the program for the current year was $1.9
million, of which the School Board paid $825,000. She noted that their numbers were a little
different than the School Board’s because they were including the full cost of
the deputies.
Ms.
Fischer stated that the job today was to get to the real figure so that they
could look at their budget and relate what the true figure would be.
Superintendent
Cowin stated that she thought that the length of time should also be considered,
since their school year was only 180 days.
Mr.
Jimmy Conner, School Board member, asked what the school resource officers were
doing during the time that school was not in session.
Sheriff
Borders responded that when school was out, the school resource deputies were
assigned to various parts of the Sheriff’s Office.
Mr.
Conner inquired whether they negotiated in the past for just the 180 days of
the school year or per the entire year.
Commr.
Cadwell stated that he thought they negotiated for the year, because they
normally would not need a lot of those deputies and would only hire a
percentage of them.
Mr.
Conner noted that Sheriff Borders did not have any objection to the
municipalities being involved and stated that this might be an opportunity for
the municipalities to look at what they would receive and what benefits they
would derive. He commented that he
thought this was one of the major points of discussion.
Commr.
Cadwell stated that in his experience, he saw that having a contract with the
School Board would give smaller police departments another officer that they
might not be able to afford otherwise.
Mr.
Scott Strong, School Board member, commented that they all participated in the
community as stakeholders in this very important decision and their presence at
this meeting indicated their desire to accomplish that goal as well to
safeguard their community and students.
He assured the participants that this was not a shakedown of their
municipalities and County Commission, but an opportunity to partner to come up
with a shared solution that they could all be a party to as well as an
opportunity for the cities to know that this was available to them to help fund
additional officers. He commented that
this was a brainstorming and prioritizing session and that he understood that
everyone else had finite budgets as well.
He noted that if there was a shortage in funding, at some point decisions
and cuts would have to be made.
Superintendent
Cowin stated that their teachers worked a total of 196 days and asked the
Sheriff if it would be possible to hire deputies just specifically for this
purpose for that amount of time at a lower amount of money.
Sheriff
Borders stated that he had not looked at that option, but every deputy sheriff
that they had working for them was full time for a full year. He also mentioned that he did not think
they were working summer school this year, but they have done that
previously. He added that he would be
reluctant to hire a deputy sheriff to work for 180 or 196 days.
Commr.
Cadwell asked if anyone has looked at hiring security guards at the middle
school level as a viable option.
Mr.
Conner stated that unfortunately the culture has changed over the years, and he
thought they were seeing the need for the deputies at the middle schools.
Mr.
Mitchell commented that the school resource officers were not only law
enforcement, but also counselors, teachers, and role models. He thought it would be a step backward to
hire security officers and that it would take security away from the schools,
especially in light of what had happened in Columbine and other recent
events. He commented that in the times
they were living in today, he would never want to take security away and always
would want to add to it.
Ms.
Cindy Barrow, School Board member, pointed out that there were other counties
that actually had SRO’s in their elementary schools, but other than the Villages
Elementary School, they had not requested that.
Mr.
Metz noted that they appreciated all ideas coming to the table. He reiterated what Sheriff Borders stated
earlier that they did not assign just anyone to their schools, and what he
determined from visiting schools was that these SRO’s were an integral part of
the staff of the school. He believed
that having them there provided the continuity that would not be possible with
a private security firm, and the level of training would be different. He appreciated the high level of expertise
that the SRO’s currently had, and they would not want to lose that.
Mr.
Mitchell explained that Seminole County has added security officers to their
campus as an enhancement but not in lieu of their SRO program.
Commr.
Cadwell commented that if they were not going to do anything to change the
level of service and that the provider was going to be the Sheriff, the only
other way that they could do that was to add additional partners.
DISCUSSION
Mr.
Metz summarized that the current program employed just the Sheriff’s
deputies. He commented that the unit
cost was an issue for them, because even though they understood that using the
full cost of the deputies made sense from a budget standpoint, their position
would be to look into adjusting that to reflect the actual usage of the services
to the schools for the school calendar and come up with a number that would
reflect a more actual out-of-pocket expense that the presence at their schools
would cost the Sheriff’s Office. He also
recapped that they discussed the possibility of redoing the whole program with
the participation of the municipalities so that they could put their own
departmental personnel in the schools within their city boundaries, thereby
removing some of the County’s costs.
Chief
Mark Isom, Director of Public Safety, City of Fruitland Park, stated that he
had a police officer visit the school three times a week in the elementary
school, but he thought that the program needed to stay under the Sheriff to keep
the continuity, uniformity, and consistency of the program in tact. He also pointed out that the S.R.O. has to be
an experienced deputy that had the knowledge of how to deal with the students
and that they would be dealing with only one entity with the Sheriff’s Office.
Ms.
Fischer commented that she believes from listening to the comments at that
meeting that they all felt that they have benefited by the standardized
training that the Sheriff’s Department provides.
Mr.
Conner commented that he did not think they should overlook the benefit to the
cities of having their resource officers in their schools, and he thought that
if there was an incident in the school within the city limits, the Sheriff’s
deputy would be calling the city police department because of the jurisdictional
issues. He also thought the police officers from the municipalities would get
familiar with the students, learn about criminal activity, and get to know
their community better by being at the schools.
He further pointed out that it was city officials that gradually one by
one left this program because of budget issues.
He stated that he totally agreed that the Sheriff’s Office has done a
marvelous job, but he thought it was unwise for the cities not to weigh the
benefits they would get out of this program.
He commented that after careful analysis, if the municipalities did not
care to participate in the program, then that decision would be respected.
Chief
Randy Scoggins of Mount Dora stated that he was speaking philosophically, since
he could not speak for the City, but he thought that the municipalities could
do a superb job of providing SRO’s that had the right education and
training. He explained that there were
national standards for the school resource program and that school resource
officers generally adopted a management philosophy of a principal. He also commented that the students that went
to Mount Dora Middle and High Schools were his residents that he responded to after
3:00 p.m., and he felt that he really did need to know what they were involved
in. He pointed out that when he came
there in 1999, for five years he attempted to put those SRO’s back under the
Mount Dora P.D., but he was summarily spurned since the Sheriff at that time
did not want to give that up. He
mentioned that budgetarily he worked it out four or five years ago, but since
then they have moved their priorities into some different enhancements, and he did
not know if they could even consider doing that now. He assured the other chiefs of police that it
was very doable, worked quite well, and jurisdictional issues were no more
complicated than mutual aid. He also
opined that it would be unreasonable to expect any police administrator to hire
someone part time to do this, and he strongly emphasized that it was important
to hire someone that was experienced, trained, and met educational standards
and had the level of expertise that was needed.
Mr.
John Drury, City Administrator for Tavares, mentioned that he also could not
speak on behalf of his Board and that he was there to collect information and
inform his Board of the discussions and options so that they could collectively
make a decision as to what they believed would be in the best interest of their
constituents. He commented that no matter
who paid for the SRO program, the taxpayers would be paying the same amount of
money they always had and they were just shifting who was collecting how
much. He asked for clarity of whether
they were talking about shifting the money distribution, changing the level of
service, or reducing the cost.
Mr.
Strong commented that the School Board had no discretion on the millage to be
set or the amount to be assessed, and their funds have been significantly
reduced.
Mr.
Metz stated that he believed their intent was to have the current level of
service continue in the middle and high schools. He noted that their initial goal was to
address the cost sharing with the County, the unit cost of each deputy, and whether
they were going to continue with the Sheriff’s deputies in their schools. He clarified that the second part of their
effort was to try to broaden the participants to include those municipalities
that had an interest in participating to use the other partners’ share of the
cost to fund one of their own officers in the schools rather than the Sheriff’s
deputy.
Sheriff
Borders commented that some of the confusion regarding the numbers was that the
school system’s budget used the starting deputy salaries, but the budget that
the Sheriff’s Office turned in to the Board of County Commissioners used the
actual pay of a lot of seasoned veterans that worked in the schools, which
would make that number higher.
Mr.
Metz commented that since they already had the officers identified, they could
use the actual number, since they agreed that continuity was important.
Ms.
MacLeod believed that they could use an average of the salaries that they were
paying the SRO’s.
Ms.
Laurie Humphrey, Project Manager, Lake County Shared
Services Network, commented that the municipalities might be able to help pay
for that deputy during the 180-day specific time frame.
Commr. Cadwell commented that they
had to watch for double taxation issues, because citizens in the cities paid
county taxes also.
Ms. Fischer asked Sheriff Borders
whether there was a way that the municipalities could help in the expenditures
with the extra curricular activities and sporting events. She also noted that they paid extra for the
hours before and after school that students were still on campus.
Sheriff Borders stated that the
schools paid them $30 per hour outside of the contract to cover sporting events,
while the City of Umatilla charged $35 per hour for that.
Commr. Renick stated that she
thought the timing of this discussion with the municipalities was a little bit
suspect. She added that they were
reaching out to them at a time when they were looking for money and commented
that they were all in a budget crunch.
She opined that if all they have decided to do by the end of this
meeting was reach out to the cities, they have not accomplished anything. She also pointed out that in the long run,
the citizens only cared about the safety of the students and not about whose
budget it was coming out of.
Mr. Strong replied that they should
give the municipalities an opportunity to weigh in on it and participate in it.
Superintendent Cowin asked if there
was a way to eliminate the roving SRO’s or consolidating some of the services
at the smaller schools, or if for some days the municipalities could come in
and share that.
Sheriff Borders responded that they
did not think they had enough SRO’s, which was why they additionally funded
three canines, three sergeants, and a lieutenant, which the school system did
not pay for. He also commented that they
funded above and beyond the number of deputies that they contracted with
because they felt that was needed to provide sufficient service.
Commr. Stewart opined that there was
nothing more important in their County than their children, and she pointed out
that even the municipalities that did not have high schools and middle schools
within their borders benefited from SRO’s, because their students came back
into their towns and cities better citizens because of the interaction with
them. She believed that they should all
find a way to work together to fund this program, and she believed partnering
was the way to go.
Mr. Ralph Bowers, City Manager of
Fruitland Park, stated that he did not think it would be received well by most
elected officials at the local level if it was simply an attempt to shift the
burden. He noted that right now the
Sheriff was the easily identifiable person of responsibility, and if they blurred
that relationship and started contracting with other organizations, they would
be specifically responsible for incidents in the school. He commented that he did not think it was the
thing they wanted to do.
Mr. Metz recapped that the Board of
County Commissioners was committed to going back with the Sheriff to work
through the numbers for salary, benefits and any other additional expenses that
they were seeking and to look at the calendar to see how best that cost could
be articulated and shared for the coming fiscal year. He also recapped that they decided not to
reduce the level of service or to use anything but qualified law enforcement
professionals. He reiterated that the
School Board made it clear that they wanted to reach out to those cities that
were interested in participating and seeing if they wanted to have any role in
the school safety program. He asked
Commr. Cadwell if he thought that they should have a special working group on
this, designating one Board member and one Commissioner, as well as the Sheriff
and anyone else who comes to the table.
Commr. Cadwell responded that would
probably be the best way to do that, and the issue now was pretty small and
came down to arithmetic.
Ms. Fischer pointed out that they
just had a gang diversion committee meeting and that they had proliferation of
gang activity in the south end of the county, with danger of it spreading to
other parts of the county. She also
commented that they were serious about making sure that students were safe and that
they did everything they could do to ensure safety in the schools.
After Mr. Strong volunteered to be
the designated member to work with the Board of County Commissioners on this
issue, Mr. Metz appointed him to be the representative to the working
group. He also clarified that Commr.
Cadwell and Sheriff Borders also had volunteered to work on that group. He instructed any elected officials in any of
the cities who would like to join that group to designate someone and contact
Mr. Mitchell’s office with that person’s name so that they could get them on
the contact list.
CLOSING
COMMENTS
Chief Steve Graham, Clermont
Police Chief, opined that they had to keep at least the current level of
service for the school resource officer program and to even expand it, but he
realized that in light of the budget issues they probably could not expand it
at this time. He related that even
though the Sheriff had deputies at East Ridge, his officers also visited the
campus, and he deployed five or six of his officers during the last week of
school. He summarized that it was a
vital program, and they needed to keep it up.
Ms.
Barrow asked Chief Graham to tell them a little bit about what he was seeing
regarding gang activity in the South Lake area.
Chief
Graham responded that they have seen a tremendous increase in juvenile gang
activity in the last 12 to 18 months, and they have identified a few gangs that
have already started to form and accrue in south Lake County. He related that in an earlier meeting today,
he proposed that the Chiefs of Police and the Sheriff form a multi-agency gang
task force, and he hoped in the next few months they could put that together
and start coordinating some intelligence activity. He commented that other agencies that did not
get in front of the problem quickly enough resulted in their gang task force
turning into a violent crime task force.
Mr.
Mitchell added that they have formed a community partnership from different entities
all over the County, but the piece that they were missing was the participation
of city police departments. He extended
an invitation to any city that would like to join their task force, which
looked at the complete and holistic solution, including bringing in community
partners, people who could counsel young people, and assistance for families of
gang members.
Mr.
Paul Berg, Eustis City Manager, echoed the belief that the school resource
officer program was a good and important program. He stated that he did not think there was any
doubt that the cities could run a good program, but there were some obvious
benefits such as training, consistency, management, and supervision in having
that in a centralized capacity. He
encouraged the two boards to try to find a way to figure this out.
Chief
Isom commented that he also had officers at the school during the last week of
school. He was concerned that if the
cities decided to do the program, a few years down the road it would get kicked
out from under them like what had happened before. He also opined that the Sheriff has done an
excellent job with the training of the deputies for this program.
Mr. Mitchell announced that on July
28, they would have a workshop for training the trainers of gang identification
and intervention for law enforcement, community partners, and faith-based
organizations and that the trainer was coming in and working with the Safe Climate
Coalition and the Shared Services Network.
He also noted that there was a group of people from Lake County that
would be going to a conference in Atlanta to receive the training so that they
could come back and share with the constituents in Lake County information on
how to identify and intervene with gang members.
Captain Todd Luce of the Sheriff’s
Office announced that on June 18 and 19 at the Institute of Public Safety on
Lane Park Cutoff, Tavares, they were having the Florida Gang Officers Association
give a two-day class on gang identification and information sharing, which was
open to law enforcement and school administrators.
Commr. Stivender stated that she was
the liaison working with Ms. Humphrey and Ms. Fischer on the Safe Climate Coalition
and the Shared Services Network and commented that they have done an excellent
job and would continue to do so.
ADJOURNMENT
There
being no further business to be brought to the attention of the Board, the
meeting was adjourned at 2:45 p.m.
__________________________________
WELTON CADWELL, CHAIRMAN
ATTEST:
__________________________
NEIL
KELLY, CLERK