Mineral Wells is a small rural community in Texas located approximately 60 miles west of Fort Worth. Mineral Wells Independent School District has approximately 3,300 students and 500 employees in six schools across five campuses.
The city of Mineral Wells has approximately 240 employees across multiple departments that cover 21.2 square miles. The district and city strengthened their partnership in 2025 when the idea of shared services proved to be mutually beneficial for both organizations.
The partnership between the district and city was primarily two-fold:
- The district employed student resource officers from the citys police department
- The police and fire departments helped develop the districts emergency response plans
But the district and the city faced escalating costs that would mildly alter agreements between the two entities.
Increasing costs
The district had previously employed two full-time and three part-time officers. The need for full-time officers changed with House Bill 3 in the 88th Texas legislative session to …ensure that at least one armed security officer is present during regular school hours at each district campus.
The city moved to a third-party provider for technology support and services in 2020. The agreement included monthly billing for desktop support, Office 365 support, and backup services; after-hours support along with out-of-scope projects and deployments that were billed separately.
The district offset the immediate cost of five full-time officers by utilizing its school guardian program (trained and armed school employees), allowing the district to stagger the increased cost over a couple of budget cycles. The district increased to three full-time officers with two part-timers for the 2023-24 school year and completed the move to five full-time officers the following school year.
However, the overall increased cost of officers caused the district to begin evaluating the cost of implementing its own district police department, partly due to the former city managers change in procedure, making the district pay the full cost of the officers as opposed to a previous shared cost model.
The city hired its current city manager, Jason Weeks, in January 2025. He noticed the monthly technology services bill had been increasing over the previous five years, while many items were billed for being out of scope with the agreement.
He began to make inquiries regarding technology services to improve overall technology support for the citys departments. Meanwhile, he had engaged in conversation with district Superintendent David Tarver regarding the officer agreement.
Weeks believed that the district should only pay for the hours that it needed officers for each school day. It was during those conversations that he had an idea: What if the district and the city exchanged resources?
Exchanging expertise
Shared services may not necessarily be a novel concept, but it is certainly one that those involved were collectively unaware of occurring in any other community. The city would provide officers to the district, and the district would provide technology services to the city, each at no cost to the other.
Negotiations began on a new interlocal agreement for technology services, drafted by Assistant City Manager/Director of Finance Aaron Bovos and district Director of Technology Justin Lascsak, for the upcoming 2025-26 school year. The agreement was approved by the school board of trustees and the city council.
The district still pays for officers outside of normal school hours (e.g., extracurricular and community events), and the city still pays for technology hardware and software in its environment.
A key provision in the agreement was how to staff this arrangement, especially considering the differences in work calendars. Early conversations led to establishing the need for the city to hire a full-time technology support specialist.
The city technology position, as stated in the agreement, would coordinate with [district] technology department staff on daily activities, projects, tasks, and deliverables. Secondly, a district employee would work regularly with the city and serve as a primary liaison between the two organizations.
The district consulted with legal counsel to ensure that the position of an employee to share responsibilities between the two organizations was implemented with a legal role and job description. Finally, stipends were provided to the districts network manager and director of technology to work with the city and provide oversight, guidance and engineering support for the two day-to-day employees.
The district technology department has made significant progress towards improving the citys technology infrastructure through performing equipment updates, documentation, and providing recommendations for building a roadmap forward. The district has a full staff of officers for its campuses during operational school hours, as required by law.
Safety and security have been strengthened through the concept and implementation of shared services, utilizing police officers and technology personnel between the district and city.
