Friday, June 11, 2004

Jordan leaves budget hearings without a resource officer By JOHN THOMPSON jthompson@TheCitizenNews.com Fayette County Sheriff’s Department Lt. Col. Bruce Jordan did not leave Wednesday’s county budget hearings a happy man. Jordan was hopeful of adding a school resource officer, two drug agents, a secretary and a detective to his staff at the Criminal Investigations Division. But when the Fayette County Commission refused his requests for the resource officer, Jordan left the budget hearing by telling the commission he would solve the problem. “I’ll just fund it myself, and we’ll talk about it again next year,” he said. Jordan wanted the additional resource officer to act in a supervisory capacity and be able to go to the different schools when the assigned resource officer was away from the premises. “But the agreement we signed with the school board said we would maintain an officer at each school, and that’s what we’re doing,” Fayette County Commission Chairman Greg Dunn said. The commission also questioned the cost of the resource officer and whether they were paying more than 50 percent for the position. Jordan was seeking $35,000 in salary for the officer, but the commission said that was only the tip of the iceberg. “You still have car costs, uniform and training,” said Commissioner Linda Wells. Finance Director Mark Pulliam said the school system funds $20,000 an officer, but said the contract could be reexamined with the Fayette County Board of Education. Jordan said he could see if the school board would go up to $30,000 an officer, but Dunn said that was not necessary. “I think it’s more of a philosophical question. We said we would have one officer in each school, and that’s what we’re doing,” said Dunn. Jordan was also shot down in his effort to hire two more agents for the drug task force. “In 1989, we started with four agents, and we’ve only added one new agent,” he said. The County Commissioners did not comment on his request, but before the meeting Wells speculated other funding could be found for the agents. “Maybe they can use some of those confiscated funds to pay for them,” she said.

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