The Great Falls Public Schools board was scheduled to vote during their April 27 meeting on an agreement between GFPS, the Cascade County Sheriff’s Office and the Great Falls Police Department.
The agreement is for the pilot reserve deputy school resource officer program proposed by Sheriff Jesse Slaughter.
During the meeting, the item was pulled from the agenda at the request of Cascade County Commissioners.
GFPS Superintendent Heather Hoyer told the board that the commission wanted time to review the proposal.
“This has been on the docket for quite a while, so we look forward to seeing where this goes,” Kim Skornogoski, GFPS board member, said during the April 27 meeting.
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Later that week, Commissioner Joe Briggs told The Electric that commissioners hadn’t yet seen the agreement.
He said commissioners had some questions and wanted to review the document. He said they were discussing with county legal staff whether it needed to be approved by commissioners and he had questions about the county’s liability under the proposal of putting someone on the county payroll under the supervisory control of GFPD.
The agreement had also been on the April 13 GFPS board meeting agenda, but was pulled since Hoyer told the board she’d just received the draft from the city attorney’s office about an hour before their meeting.
During the April 13 meeting, Hoyer said that they’d developed a draft, but after lawyers looked at it, the draft she’d received at 4:39 p.m. that day was different, so she wanted the district administration and board to have more time to review it.
GFPD Chief Jeff Newton also wanted the City Commission to review the agreement, which has not been on a city agenda, but City Manager Greg Doyon wanted to know if the board was in support, Hoyer told the board.
Gordon Johnson, GFPS board chair, asked if they needed to appoint a subcommittee to review the agreement.
Hoyer said the board’s safety committee already did that work and it was coming back before the full board for review.
Hoyer said Slaughter indicated the new program would start in the fall.
Slaughter told The Electric that he’s also intending to hire a reserve deputy SRO for the county and one for Foothills Community Christian School, which is paying the cost of their own deputy.
GFPS contracts with GFPD for five school resource officers, who are sworn officers and detectives.
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For the 2024-2025 school year, they responded to 830 call-outs, a 27 percent increase over the previous year.
Of those, 437 were at the request of GFPS and 357 occurred off campus but were referred to the SRO because they involved school-aged children.
The numbers show a “slow but steady uptick” in calls over five years, according to GFPS.
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Slaughter is proposing to fund the program for the first year with private corporate donations and then absorb it into the CCSO budget through county safety levy funds.
The agreement includes the following tenets, according to GFPS:
- Funded through private industry donations secured by the CCSO for this year, through the county safety levy thereafter. There may be an opportunity for federal funding in the future.
- no cost to GFPS
- GFPD and CCSO will work collectively, in conjunction with GFPS, to design the GFPS model, recognizing and honoring the culture of the GFPS/GFPD SRO program.
- annual review/renewal date will coincide with the annual SRO agreement between GFPS and GFPD review each summer
- the individual will be completely sworn, and under the direct supervision and direction of the SRO supervisor and Capt. Brian Black, to include school/activity assignment, training, and evaluation
- candidate must be able to meet all the requirements of active police officers, including screenings and background checks
- program updates will be provided to the GFPS board during a public meeting
