Warren Co. Fiscal Court approves additional school resource officers

Warren County’s Fiscal Court is giving a thumbs up to more school resource officers. 

On Friday morning, magistrates voted unanimously to hire 5 additional resource officers for the Warren County School District.

Warren County Sheriff Jerry "Peanuts" Gaines and district Superintendent, Rob Clayton, both spoke at the meeting in support of hiring the additional help. 

"The school resource officers are tremendous partners," said Clayton. "I think a lot of time people in the community may think it’s more of a security aspect, but the reality is that it’s a small component of their value in our schools."

Last week, the Warren County School Board voted in favor of a property tax hike to fund the new resource officers, in addition to more mental health specialists and new safety technologies. 

According to Clayton, the new resource officers will be placed at the county’s middle schools. 

"Kids get to know that school resource officer and if they hear something like, somebody got their daddy’s gun on the back seat of the car, they generally come and tell the officer, and that helps," said Sheriff Gaines. 

The district’s high schools already have school resource officers. Clayton says these new resource officers will also partner with the district’s elementary schools.