Florida lawmakers repeatedly denied pleas for more school-safety money

STUART, Fla. — One day in October, Cmdr. Dale Tharp recalls, a Pensacola middle school student was bullied to his breaking point.

A tip led deputies to search the 14-year-old's gym bag, where they found a loaded 9mm pistol. Extra magazines were stuffed into a bag pocket.

The incident, Tharp said, is emblematic of how school security has changed since he started working as a resource officer in Escambia County more than 25 years ago.

"We used to be the good guys in white hats, breaking down the barrier between students and law enforcement," Tharp said. "Now, we’re making sure parents can send their kids to school and have them come home in the afternoons."

Tharp has noticed an even more jarring change to school security this year: He has fewer officers. Fewer barriers to prevent the kind of attack like the one that claimed at least 17 lives at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland on Wednesday.

Resource officers in Florida, in large part, are paid for from a pool of money called Safe Schools, earmarked each year strictly for school districts to use on safety and security expenses.

The state's 67 school districts this year are sharing $64.4 million, an amount unchanged for the past seven years.

Schools are supposed to use this money for a gamut of safety-and-security needs, from bullying prevention to after-school programs, yet more than 80% is spent on school resource officers.

As the 2018 legislative session trudges past the halfway point, Florida's Senate and House of Representatives are split on kicking in any more money for Safe Schools.

Source : usatoday