BOONE COUNTY -- The Columbia Police Department and Columbia Public Schools recently reached an agreement to share the cost of eight school resource officers during the upcoming school year at a cost of about $188,000.

That agreement never covered the cost of four school resource officers provided by the Boone County Sheriff’s Department.

Boone County Sheriff Dwayne Carey was paying the full cost of four deputies dividing their time in eight schools, including five Columbia public school buildings.

Columbia school administrators have now worked out a deal with Sheriff Carey where the district loses three deputies while keeping one full-time officer at Bearfield Elementary School for about $20,000.

The other three Boone County school resource officers that used to work at Columbia schools will now work full-time at public schools in Sturgeon, Harrisburg and Hallsville.

“This allows us to put full-time SRO’s at Hallsville, Harrisburg and Sturgeon," Carey said. "Obviously, we have three high schools at those locations. That’s going to be a good thing, plus I think it is going to allow us to enhance some of the programs that we weren’t able to start because we were halftime in between two schools.”

Columbia Public School Administrators are considering the use of federal stimulus money to pay for the $20,000 school resource officer agreement with Sheriff Carey.