Oct. 26—Faced with a state mandate to put a police officer at every campus, Ector County ISD Police Chief Jeff Daniels said they are on their way to their goal of doubling the department, step by step.
House Bill 3, according to the Texas Association of School Boards, made many changes to school safety laws including "requiring districts to assign armed personnel at every campus."
In August, Superintendent Scott Muri said ECISD couldn't meet the HB 3 requirement by Sept. 1 as specified in the law because of lack of funding and inability to hire the number of officers needed.
But now the district is taking the funding out of the fund balance. Chief Financial Officer Deborah Ottmers said in an email that this is not something they want to do because they need to keep 90 days' worth of expenses in fund balance for cash flow purposes. She added that they have no choice, though.
The state legislature has not authorized funding for school districts yet.
"We're going to hire 30. That's our goal; to be able to provide one for each campus and also keep current staff levels where they're at, on our middle school and high school campuses, along with our specialized areas. We have an officer that picks up the the bank deposits for the school system, so that position would stay in place. ... There are some positions that are still required for us to maintain a working department throughout the day and also manage campuses," Daniels said Oct. 19.
The force has 32 officers and one part-time officer who takes care of the weekend calls.
The minimum salary for police officers working 197 days a year is $48,683; the midpoint is $58,312; and the maximum is $67,941.
The minimum salary for 227 days is $56,096 a year; the midpoint is $67,192; and the maximum is $78,288. Salaries go up according to rank, the district salary schedule shows.
Daniels is expecting that in January they will have 10 to 12 new officers out of the 30. Moving into the second half of the school year, they are hoping to be at least over halfway toward the goal, if not a little bit better than where they are now.
Daniels said they started the school year with six open positions within the current staffing levels.
"We filled those, and today we have hired seven additional officers. ... We need about 23 positions. We've got about five other candidates lined up who are going through the process of onboarding and getting their certificates where they need to join our team. It's going really well. Thirty is a big number. But we're accomplishing that goal a lot quicker than we expected," Daniels said.
He added that they are competing salary wise with the larger municipalities, but looking at independent school districts in general, they are "pretty competitive across the board."
"The problem is we don't really compete with other ISDs for officers. We're competing with these larger municipalities who pay more, but we're still able to recruit because this is a different style of policing. This is true community policing. That is the majority of our job is being on our campuses, interacting with our students and our staff, creating a safer environment. ... We're just as busy as every other department in answering calls of service. I think one benefit to our recruiting is the hours that the officers work. There's no rotating shifts. There's no nights, typically nothing past an overtime assignment at a sporting event. (The) majority of weekends they're open; they have that time off unless we have overtime that we have to cover for athletic events. Then, of course, the biggest deal is being able to spend the holidays (with family). They follow the same schedule the district follows and having those holidays, that time off with family ... it's huge. I think that's hard to put a price tag on, so I think that's what really helps us recruit and maintain staffing levels, where other agencies kind of struggle in that area," Daniels said.
He added that they are drawing officers from everywhere.
"We've got officers from the Odessa Police Department, Midland Police Department, Ector County Sheriff's Office, Midland Sheriff's Office, Midland ISD, the Midland Hospital District. They're coming to us from all over. We've gotten some from the Kermit Police Department, some of the smaller cities around us. We're starting to draw some interest from them. We're really stepping up our recruitment efforts. It's starting to show the dividends of the amount of time we're putting into it," Daniels said.
To recruit officers, they use social media, but one of the best tools is word of mouth from their officers.
"We've had a lot of interest just from officers seeing the postings that we do. We recruit statewide through the TECOL (Texas Commission on Law Enforcement) website. ... They have a section in their website where law enforcement agencies around the state can post their openings. That's helped draw some interest from all over," Daniels said.
He added that ECISD is doing everything possible to recruit the best applicants they can find, get them in position and trained as quickly as possible.
"But also ensuring that we're putting a qualified applicant out there that's capable of doing the job that we ask," Daniels said.
"We've cut several due to backgrounds and things like that. We have a very strict onboarding process. There's a lot of checks and balances that we follow through with and there's a lot of mandates by the state now that really ensure that agencies are hiring the right person," he added.
There is a system in place through the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement for backgrounds.
"In the past, we used to have to send an officer to wherever that PD (police department) was to look at their background packet. Now that stuff is uploaded to a statewide database and there's a requirement for how much time the department has to get it done. ... The website is actually called TECOL Secure Share. We're a member of that, so when someone applies for us, we request" their personnel file from any agency they've worked for, Daniels said.
This is done so they can see "the true background" of the person and compare it to the criminal background packet they filled out.
"That's one of the big steps in getting the right person," Daniels said.
Depending on where they sit with their licensing, onboarding can be longer or shorter.
"If they've been out of law enforcement for over 180 days, then we have to send them back to have a psychological exam ... Then they have the drug tests, the background visit, the background check and then interviews, writing samples, physical assessment test. It can take three weeks, up to four sometimes for per applicant just to pass the initial background and all the pre-requirements. Once they're on, it's a 13-week program, unless they have prior experience and are able to demonstrate that they're capable of doing the job with less ... training. But the minimum that it takes is seven weeks," Daniels said.
He added that it's a long, thorough process.
"We've (had) some applicants who have breezed through it," because they had prior experience, which is very helpful, Daniels said.
"We try not to hire too many that don't have experience due to the nature of our job. When you're on a campus, you're the patrol officer; you're the investigator, so you do all the work. Whereas (with) a city ... police department, patrol will take the initial report and then forward that report onto a detective to determine if there's something they can investigate. We do everything. It helps if our officers have that experience beforehand," Daniels said.
If they don't, there is training to give them the experience they need to do the job.
"It's a really good program. We're really proud of what it does and the product that it puts out," Daniels said.
The department has a goal of having one officer at every elementary campus.
"Our middle schools typically operate with one officer, as well, and then our high schools operate with approximately five, but that's where our K9s are deployed ... so they don't only just service the high school. They're stationed at the high school, but they go out and service every campus we have. They house five, but some days there aren't always five," Daniels said.
He noted that it would be nice to have two officers at the middle schools.
"I think in any situation if we could add manpower, it would be a benefit. It's just such a huge cost to districts. This is a funded but unfunded mandate. It's a great expense. It's a great safety aspect and ECISD stands behind that. Our goal is to make our campuses as safe as possible and the number one recommendation from the state is to put a police officer on every campus and that's what we're moving towards," Daniels said.
On a connected item, Daniels said ECISD has installed impact resistant film on all campus windows.
"We're following all state mandates on all recommendations and requirements for safety. We're out there ensuring that we do the best we can do in every area. Every recommendation that comes out from the state, or mandate that comes out from the state, we're implementing ... Luckily, we did get some money for that, so that did help," Daniels said.
He added that they have gone with one of the best products out there for the film.
"I don't want to put all the details behind it out there, but it's one of the top (products) you can get across the country. It's a really great product. It really helps ensure the safety of our students and our staff," Daniels said.
