NORWAY — The Oxford Hills School District board of directors voted Monday night to extend the contract for a school resource officer with the town of Paris until June 2015.
The contract signing is pending a decision by Paris voters on whether to remove its Police Department and use Oxford County Sheriff’s Office for patrol service.
On June 11, Paris voters will decide whether they want to contract with the Oxford County Sheriff’s Department for patrol service.
Prior to Monday’s vote, the Paris Police Department has contracted with SAD 17 on an open basis for the school resource officer. Superintendent Rick Colpitts said the district pays $33 per hour for the position, but the officer is an employee of the Police Department. The town uses the officer when he is not working for the school and they pay that share of the cost.
Paris selectmen recently revised their pending contract with the Oxford County Sheriff’s Office at the request of the the SAD 17 Board of Directors to include an escape clause if Paris residents chose county coverage.
The move would allow the school district to negotiate directly with a police agency for a school resource officer rather than use Paris as an intermediary between the school and the Sheriff’s Office.
While Paris voters weigh their options, the town of Norway is also awaiting word on the vote’s outcome. Norway faces the loss of an officer because of budget cutbacks, but should the town be able to contract with the school district for the school resource officer it would put them in good standing to get a grant to pay for the officer’s salary.
The Norway Police Department is currently using a four-year U.S. Department of Justice COPS Hiring Program grant to pay for one of its officers, but that position is due to be cut on Dec. 31, unless the town successfully applies for another COPS grant.
Norway police Chief Rob Federico recently told selectmen that one of the changes in this year’s grant is that those towns that indicate the officer’s position would be deployed as a school resource officer or towns that take steps to hire at least one military veteran will receive additional consideration for the COPS funding.
Under Federico’s proposed budget for 2013-14, one employee will have to be laid off, unless other funding is found. The newest hire, one that is currently in the academy, will be cut under union contract terms and the town’s drug enforcement officer will have to do patrol.
Town Manager David Holt said that he and Federico have discussed using a Norway officer to do the school resource officer’s job, something that Paris police officers have done for years.
Holt said Thursday that the issue is “still alive” because the fate of the Paris Police Department is as yet unresolved.
ldixon@sunjournal.com
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- Colleen Stauder, a senior at Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School in Paris, and her mother, Juliann, talk with Adult Eduction Director Clyde Clark during Monday’s night SAD 17 Board of Directors meeting. Stauder, who will attend Wheaton College in Massachusetts in the fall, was one of a dozen seniors feted by the board during a reception for the top academic seniors.
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