Commissioners approve additional SRO positions

ASHEBORO — The Randolph County Board of Commissioners has given its approval for the procurement of two additional school resource officer positions at Randolph County Schools.

The board had several items involving the Randolph County Sheriff’s Office on the agenda at its Sept. 8 meeting, including for the request of an additional two SRO positions to provide services at Randolph County Schools at a cost of around $116,500.

“This is a request in conjunction with Randolph County Schools emphasizing the need for enhanced safety and security throughout our elementary schools,” Nunn said. “The addition of these SROs would enable each deputy to deliver more focused coverage across the elementary schools in the county.”

“These two officers will join the three SROs that are currently covering the Eastern, the Southwest and Randleman zones,” RCSS superintendent Stephen Gainey said. “We received a North Carolina Stronger Connections grant, a federal grant, and we’re going to use that money to pay for two more SROs in those three zones to give us five SROs covering 12 schools.”

Gainey said the school system is working with the Sheriff’s Office and Archdale Police Department to come up with a plan for the five schools in the Archdale/Trinity zone.

Randolph County Schools will be responsible for reimbursing 10 out of the 12 months each fiscal year going forward for the officers.

The board also had a request for the purchase of 10 vehicles for the Sheriff’s Office. These include eight 2025 Chevrolet Silverados and two 2025 Chevrolet Tahoes, at a total cost of less than $540,000.

The funding for the purchase was already allocated in the Sheriff’s Office’s 2025-26 budget.

The final item was seeking approval to utilize $9,600 in law enforcement restricted funds for the purchase of a single purpose K9 lab.

“Specfically, he’ll be trained in narcotics detection,” chief deputy Steven Nunn said. “That’ll be his only purpose. He won’t be a tracking dog or anything like that. Strictly single-purpose narcotics use.”

The vendor the Sheriff’s Office will purchase the lab from is East Coast Canine and the price also includes an eight-week handler class as well.

In the memo from the Sheriff’s Office, the Sheriff wrote: “The acquisition of this K9 will significantly enhance our operational capabilities. It will assist in narcotic investigations by detecting illegal substances, thereby improving the effectiveness of our drug enforcement efforts.”

Following each request, the board unanimously approved the requests.

The board then approved a $1.115 million expenditure for county facility maintenance.

The projects to be covered by this include the fire alarm panel replacement at the courthouse, replacing the chiller at the Shaw Building, replacement of sewer pumps and valves at the Solid Waste Facility, relocating the backup 911 system to Northgate and pipe replacement at the north side of the Northgate Complex.

“The money is coming from the contingency, or many contingencies, from the Ag Center,” county engineer Paxton Arthurs said. “What’s left over in contingency that we ended up not having to use will be used for this. … And hopefully some of these projects will come in lower.”

The Randolph County Board of Commissioners will next meet Oct. 6.