The Town of Wareham is moving closer to reinstating the school resource officer position for the 2014-15 school year, Superintendent Kimberly Shaver-Hood told the School Committee Wednesday night.

Shaver-Hood said she is working with Interim Chief of Police Kevin Walsh to find a funding source to pay a full-time police officer to work in Wareham schools, providing crime prevention and security services.

Officer Karl Baptiste, longtime school resource officer, was removed from the schools in February as part of a broader budget-cutting effort in the Police Department and town.

“A SRO (school resource officer) job description is also in the works,” said Shaver-Hood.  “This is an ongoing discussion.”

School Committee member Kenneth Fontes asked if there was any way to to get an officer back into the schools for the remaining three months of this school year.

“It’s cuts everywhere,” Fontes said of the cash-strapped town, “but we need to find out how to get that position back.  That is my major concern.”

Fontes asked Shaver-Hood: “If we can find thirty dollars an hour, then why can’t the police come up with the difference to fund a position that is so important?”

The $30 an hour was a reference to the school-funded stop-gap measure of hiring a three-hours-a-day “security resource position” for the remainder of this year. Applicants have been interviewed for that non-police position. Shaver-Hood said Wednesday that the School Department has “a candidate we are obtaining references on.”

School Committee member Clifford Sylvia said he was not in favor of hiring anyone for the new part-time position because it is “money thrown out the window” if the new person does not have police power or authority.

“I find the whole discussion for me just a little odd,” Sylvia said. He noted that there is now no police presence for the daily assembly of more than 700 high school and middle school students while one or two officers are present at the typical school sporting event.

“That makes no sense to me. None,” Sylvia said. “I’m not satisfied with a make-shift, part-time security officer. We need our SRO back, and we need him back now.”

School Committee Chairman Rhonda Veugen said she was not looking for a vote on the issue Wednesday night.  “What we have available to us is very difficult this year,” she said.