RELATED STORIES

• Lee schools may have to pay bigger share for officers

More Education News

• Carrying the torch: Students at Osceloa Elementary School participate in a morning torch walk for exercise and competition
• Naples volunteer honored with The Education Foundation of Collier County’s Glass Slipper Award
• Collier higher education briefs: Nov. 22, 2008

Tell us about it

• What would you add to this story? Tell us what we missed.
• Do you have photos from this event? Documents we need to see? Share with us.
• Upload photos & videos
• More ways to get your stuff online and in the paper.

STORY TOOLS

• E-mail story
• iPod friendly
• Printer friendly

Share and Enjoy [?]

BONITA SPRINGS — School resource officers typically work in the jurisdiction of their assigned school. And their salaries are paid by the city in the jurisdiction. But where do they work when school is out?

This query has caused the city of Bonita Springs to question whether their portion of the money is being used properly.

The school resource officers, who are sworn police officers, spend most of their time protecting children by being a visible presence, but they are only at their school when it is in session.

For the other 80 or so workdays in a year, the “school resource” part of their title is to a certain extent dropped.

Resource officers at schools within the city of Fort Myers go back to doing what Fort Myers Police Department officers do. It’s the same in Cape Coral. And Sanibel Island.

But not Bonita Springs.

The school resource officer at Bonita Springs Middle School is a Lee County Sheriff’s Office employee and doesn’t work for the Community Policing Unit in Bonita.

When the resource officer, Cpl. Tracie Lodato, hears the bell ring, she’s back doing what every other school resource officer in the unincorporated areas of Lee County does, said Sheriff’s Office Budget Director Bill Bergquist.

“Well, most of the time, when they take their vacation and other personal time, they take that time off during the summer or spring break or they do other things like special enforcement, gangs, traffic enforcement and things like that,” Bergquist said.

And that’s what Bonita Springs taxpayers foot the bill for — vacation, law enforcement and various community activities mostly in unincorporated Lee County. Over the summer, Sheriff’s Office officials believed Lodato participated in a youth camp at Bonita Middle.

Those paying property taxes in Bonita Springs aren’t getting taxed both by the city and the county for Lodato’s services to the county, though, Berquist said.

“The portion that Bonita Springs pays is the portion they would pay if they were still a part of unincorporated Lee County,” Bergquist said.

That’s different than the double-taxation situation that arose in Cape Coral last year. Citizens on the Cape were being taxed both for Lee County resource officers and the resource officers of their own police department. The situation was resolved.

Several issues were raised in a Sept. 3 council meeting over the city’s $1.7 million Community Policing agreement with the Sheriff’s Office, including the $43,165 school resource officer expense and a 25-hour staffing at the city’s Old 41 Road substation. The city pays the county for 12 deputies and two sergeants assigned to Bonita, in addition to Lodato.

“I would like to see that position evaluated,” said Councilman Richard Ferreira, a former law enforcement officer, during discussion over the resource officer position. “I’m not sure a full-time public peace officer should be doing work the teachers should be doing.”

But what some council members and city officials didn’t know at the time is that the Lee County School District does pay toward the officers in all of the jurisdictions, including unincorporated Lee County, which Bonita Springs is a part of because it doesn’t have its own police force.

The idea behind the interlocal agreements shared by the Lee County School District and the various jurisdictions, including Lee County government, is that the district pays for the time in which the county’s 22 resource officers, including Lodato, are in the schools.

But, it’s not as cut-and-dried, because the district only pays about 27 percent, or $651,015, of the Sheriff’s Office $2.4 million resource officer expense.

That issue came up earlier this summer, when County Manager Don Stilwell recommended commissioners begin off-loading the full cost of the officers to the school district.

School Board Chairwoman Jeanne Dozier later suggested the district might consider starting its own police force. Similar school district police forces across the state cost taxpayers about half as much as the district’s current resource officer force, the Daily News reported at the time.

So, if the $43,165 the city of Bonita Springs pays is intended to cover the cost of Lodato’s duties outside Bonita Middle, why is she not assigned to the Community Policing unit?

“If, in fact, we’re subsidizing unincorporated Lee County, there’s a concern with that,” Councilman John Spear said. “I think that’s a valid question. If we are subsidizing the school system, there’s a community benefit that I think is a rational connection to the city’s tax dollars, but paying our city’s tax dollar to serve Lee County, or San Carlos Park or something like that, I have more problems with.”

This is not the first time council members have raised such questions, Sheriff Mike Scott said.

When he took the reins in 2005, the concern was that Bonita-paid deputies were responding to calls in San Carlos Park or other nearby communities. In the end, Scott said, the council’s wishes are his wishes. Having control over Lodato’s off-campus duties is no exception.

“Yes, that can happen. I would think that if they’re paying 100 percent, then they’d have 100 percent control,” Scott said. “If they’re paying a fraction, then you’d expect a fraction of control. I feel we are hired by the city of Bonita Springs.”

Scott said another council issue with the $1.6 million enforcement agreement the council took issue with, the $264,673 cost of keeping a 24-hour clerk at the city’s Old 41 Road substation, also can be worked out.

Council has suggested sharing the cost of maintaining a clerk at another nearby substation on Bonita Beach Road or reducing the hours to serve the public only during the day.

Either way, the debate over who’s responsibility the resource officers are will continue into the future. The most oft-stated concern of council members during the Sept. 3 meeting was whether the funding would find its way into the budget of the county or school district if the decision to cut was made.

“If we take the attitude we’re not going to pay for it, it’s a roll of the dice,” Spear said. “If we don’t pay our half, is the other government entity going to step up and pay?”