The Jordan School Board voted tonight to keep paying for a school resource officer, but the school liaison’s position could still be in jeopardy.

The issue came to the board after Superintendent Larry Kauzlarich and the superintendents of the five other member districts in the Minnesota River Valley Special Educational Cooperative decided to make a recommendation to the cooperative’s board to cut their funding for the position. The cooperative, the Jordan district, and the City of Jordan each pay about 1/3 of resource officer Shane Schultz’s $58,000 salary.

The money for the position doesn’t come out of the district’s general fund, Kauzlarich said, but is levied through the district’s safe schools levy. Last year, the board voted to levy about $50,000 of taxpayer money through the safe schools levy to pay for, among other costs, security cameras in the middle school.

Had the district decided to cut its funding for the position, Jordan Police Chief Bob Malz said Jordan would be the only school in the district without a school resource officer.

Kauzlarich said the Jordan board voting to keep the position would put some pressure on MRVSEC to continue funding their portion of the cost. The cooperative's board will meet next week, and the resource officer salary is an item on the agenda, he said.

For more information, read Thursday’s edition of the Jordan Independent.