New details emerge about school resource officer proposal

Superintendent Craig Barringer told Libby District School Board members Feb. 10 that bringing a resource officer aboard would cost about $6 a year for a taxpayer with a home valued at $100,000.

That amounts to about 50 cents a month, he said. But Barringer cautioned that the estimate depends on state funding. Flathead Electric Cooperative is expected to kick in more than $100,000 over five years via a grant to partially fund the position, but local officials need to raise another $70,000 to continue paying for the officer.

They hope to convince voters to approve a mill levy to do so in May.

Residents learned school officials were preparing to again ask for dedicated funding for a resource officer after Libby Police Chief Scott Kessel announced the move at a city council meeting earlier in February. Kessel publicly backed last year’s failed proposal to garner the grant and hire the officer.

Voters rejected the mill levy 1,141 to 906.

This time around, school officials have said they plan to better educate the public on the need for a resource officer. Superintendent Craig Barringer believes a lackluster effort to publicize the vote played a role in the levy’s defeat last year.

Libby School District Board Chair Ellen Johnston said the emphasis would be on turnout this year. Still, she hopes to persuade voters who previously rejected the measure to come around to the idea.

Bringing a school resource officer aboard has been a goal of the district for the past several years, she said.

“We’ll try to get more people at the polls and, of course, we would like to persuade them to let [go of] 50 cents a month for school safety,” Johnston said.

The district would benefit by having an officer rotating among the schools, getting to know the students and providing additional security if necessary, she said. Libby police officers already respond to incidents at the district’s schools, but an on-site lawman would allow for a proactive, rather than reactive, approach, Johnston said.

“We’re just hoping that the homeowners and the property owners in Libby might reconsider the decision that they made last year in light of what is going on in our country,” she said. “True, we are Libby, Mont., and we’re not a big city, but we still face the same kinds of things that can happen in a small community.”

Most of the school districts about Libby’s size in the region boast a resource officer, Johnston said.

Were voters to approve the measure, the officer would join the ranks of the Libby Police Department. But the school district would reimburse the city for the position’s cost, Barringer said.

During the Feb. 10 meeting, Barringer was asked if Sheriff Darren Short would support the proposal.