Roy Eckerdt

After years of assigning a single officer to Powell’s schools, the Powell Police Department plans to double that presence next year, adding a second school resource officer.

Though the new school resource officer (SRO) likely won’t get deeply involved in Powell schools until January, Powell Police Chief Roy Eckerdt said the department has already begun making preparations.

“It’s all a done deal,” Eckerdt said last month. “It’s just getting people in place to make it happen.”

In addition to helping secure the schools, the overall goal of Powell’s SRO program is to build relationships between police and students. Their duties can range from investigating crimes that involve students to simply joining in on school activities with kids; in the summer months, when school is out of session, SROs rejoin regular patrol shifts.

In recent years, the department’s lone SRO has wound up spending most of his time at Powell High School and Powell Middle School, leaving little time for the elementary schools, Eckerdt has said. Adding another officer would free up more time for both school resource officers to connect with students across the district.

The new SRO’s salary will be mostly funded through federal Title IV money, designated for safe and drug-free schools, said Park County School District No. 1 Superintendent Jay Curtis.

“We’re kind of reshifting some of that Title IV to pay for the resource officer,” he told the school board on Sept. 24.

With 18 sworn officers currently on the payroll, the department is, technically speaking, more than fully staffed right now (the department’s authorized strength is 17 officers). But having the department’s four newest recruits still in various stages of training and a couple other staffing shuffles complicates things, Eckerdt said. For instance, one officer has been attending a 14-week training session at the Wyoming Law Enforcement Academy in Douglas while another new officer will head to the academy in January.

Further, Sgt. Chad Miner began a stint as a task force officer with the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation in August, leaving the police department with two shift supervisors instead of the usual three.

Meanwhile, Lt. Alan Kent, a longtime veteran of the force, is set to retire in December. It was in anticipation of Kent’s retirement that the department was allowed to hire an 18th officer at the same time they hired the 17th. Eckerdt said the cost of carrying an extra officer for a few months will be offset by not having to go through another time-consuming and expensive hiring process.

As for how the second SRO will be worked into the department’s schedule, Eckerdt said shifts may be adjusted — and the new SRO will likely need to fill in for other patrol officers from time to time.

“Right now there’s a lot of chess pieces on the board,” the chief said.