Leesburg commissioners will soon consider a plan to provide four school resource officers in the city’s public schools.
The agenda item, which was tabled until a future date on Monday night, called for the Leesburg Police Department to provide resource officers at Leesburg Elementary School, Beverly Shores Elementary School and Leesburg High School.
The department currently provides the officers at the elementary schools only but under the new plan would replace deputies at the high school provided by the Lake County Sheriff’s Office.
If the plan eventually is approved, the police department would hire two additional officers to handle the school resource duties, which would take the agency from 72 to 74 sworn officers. The school board would absorb 75 percent of the $75,949 that it would cost to provide each officer in salary, benefits and a patrol vehicle. The city would pick up the remaining costs of $18,987 per officer.
All told, the school board would pay the city $227,848 for providing the four officers. Those payments would be made in quarterly installments in September, November, February and May.
The school resource officers would work at their assigned schools 40 hours per week, Monday through Friday, as assigned by the principals and the police department. Additional hours could be requested by the principals and the school board would reimburse the police department for any overtime incurred.
The police department would have the ability to pull the resource officers out of the schools in times of emergency situations. The department also would be responsible for making sure those shifts were covered when the resource officers were on vacation or out sick.
The new officers would be recruited in June 2020 and be in place by Oct. 1. Two current officers would handle those duties beginning in June until the new officers were ready to take over. Either party would have the right to cancel the agreement with a 30-day notice.
