Florida bill to tighten school security
Tallahassee FL April 20 2018 After the Parkland school shootings, every school district in Florida reassessed its school security and, unsurprisingly enough, found it needed to do more.
At the end of the legislative session last month, Gov. Rick Scott touted the $400 million that the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act appropriates for safety, security and mental health programs to make schools more secure. The measure requires every Florida public school to have some kind of armed security officer, resource officer or marshal on campus.
You had to give the Legislature credit for acting fast. And except for the provisions about arming school support staff, the bill was widely applauded.
But as school districts discovered once they crunched the new budget numbers, the legislation didn’t provide anything close to enough money to do what the law now requires.
Surprise! Local school systems, sheriffs’ departments and police departments are finding themselves looking at yet another underfunded mandate from Tallahassee.
The same week the governor signed the budget, The News-Journal held a town hall on school security. During that panel discussion, Sheriff Mike Chitwood said he’d like to put a school resource officer in each of Volusia’s schools but lacks the funds and staff to do so. He said hiring a private security firm to put an armed guard in every school would cost $5.5 million a year. And that’s doing it cheaply by contracting out.
Volusia now has 26 school resource officers. To hire another 45 would cost in the neighborhood of $6.4 million.
Meanwhile, Volusia County is due to get only $2 million from the state for enhanced school security.
An impressive gap.
Which is why School Board member Carl Persis asked the Volusia County Council this week for $2 million to handle the mandate. It was a desperation move.
And school systems across the state are scrambling to come up with solutions for the same problem.
Hillsborough County School Board, the third-largest school district in the state, for example, is looking at a $10 million to fund armed security. Sarasota County is looking at creating its own internal security force at the cost of more than $3 million over two years.
And Duval police are looking at creating a force of “school safety assistants” that would cost $10 million more than they’re getting from the state for security.
And the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Department is looking at paying for a major expansion to get deputies into the schools at a cost to the school system of more than $2 million more than the schools are getting from the state.
The crunch is felt everywhere. While it’s always tempting to blame local officials, this is by no means a Volusia County problem. It’s simply the latest wrinkle in an old pattern of unfunded and only partially funded mandates from Tallahassee.
Even when the Legislature makes small demands on schools, it doesn’t fund them. Last session, the Legislature also required every Florida school to post a sign that says “in God we trust.” Did the Legislature also put up state money to pay for the signs? You know the answer.
There is talk now of a special session to deal with gambling laws. A constitutional amendment limiting gambling is widely expected to pass in November and some legislators want to get something on the books ahead of that. It would also make sense while they’re up there to finish the job they started with the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act.
And maybe also appropriate $426,900 to pay for all those signs every school has to put up at, say, $100 a sign. It’s the least they can do.
Daytona Beach Journal Herald
