Full-Time Deputy To Be Posted At Schools Officer Will Split Time Between Mead, Mount Spokane, Sterk Says

Wed., Oct. 27, 1999

From Staff Reports

Sheriff Mark Sterk’s plan to station a full-time deputy in seven Spokane County high schools has taken its first step.

Sterk and Mead School District officials told county commissioners Tuesday that the district has raised enough money to hire a deputy to split time between Mount Spokane and Mead high schools.

The school resource officer will work flexible hours so that he or she can be on campus during the school day and during after-school activities like dances and football games.

The deputy, who still needs to be hired and trained, likely will start working at the beginning of the 2000 school year.

The school district received a $50,000 state grant to pay for nearly half the deputy’s salary and benefits for two years. The district is picking up the rest of the cost - about $60,000 - during that time.

How the position will be financed in the future is unresolved. The county has not agreed to provide any money for the deputy.

“I just want to caution everyone that two years from now, when the grant runs out, who knows what the situation will be,” County Commissioner Kate McCaslin told Sterk and the school officials.

The Riverside School District also has raised money to hire a deputy for its school, but officials are still working out the details.

Sterk said during his campaign for sheriff last year that he’d like to have such deputies in high schools in the Central Valley, West Valley, East Valley, Riverside and Mead school districts.

The Sheriff’s Department has applied for federal money to help pay for them. That request is pending.

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