ICYMI: Scott, “Legislature stiffs schools on safety program”

Scott, Lawmakers fail to provide adequate funding for school safety

Rick Scott is facing more criticism over his “woefully inadequate” plan to address gun safety, this time for the financial burden it will cause schools and local law enforcement.

Florida superintendents and sheriffs are calling out Scott for the lack of funding and for his broken promise of putting one armed officer in every school, with one superintendent saying he was “dumbfounded” by how much lawmakers passed onto schools.

And Scott continues to face criticism from Parkland students who see through his self-serving politics, saying, “Gov. Scott is trying to look like he’s taking a step in the opposite of the direction of the NRA, but we know that’s not really going to happen.”

Tallahassee Democrat, 3/9/2018, Officials: Legislature stiffs schools on safety program; arming staff may be only option

• “Sheriffs and school superintendents say Florida lawmakers don’t know much about math.”
• “It didn’t matter whether Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri looked at a calculator or chalkboard Friday morning for him to see that there isn’t enough money in the state budget to pay the bill Tallahassee handed sheriffs and school superintendents when Scott signed the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act.”
• “There’s an expectation created that there will be a law enforcement officer on every campus. How are we going to do that?’ asked Gualtieri, looking at a $6.2 million tab to hire and equip 92 more deputies to comply with the Act.”
• “Statewide, another 1,500 deputies would be needed for every school campus to be staffed, according to the Florida Education Association, a teachers union. The Florida Sheriffs Association said it would cost about $360 million to comply. The budget spends $162 million on the program.” 
• “Districts can meet the requirement through a combination of deputies and guardians, a loophole critics of arming school staff feared lawmakers would exploit to avoid paying the bill for the public safety program they designed.”
• “I’m dumbfounded. We are going to have to go into our general fund to meet this mandate,’ said Leon Superintendent Rocky Hanna, who is looking at a $700,000 difference between what the state will give him for the SRO/guardian requirement and the actual cost to hire more deputies.”

The Associated Press, 3/10,2018, Critics across partisan lines assail Florida’s new gun law

• “You said you were against teachers being armed. We told you we were against it. So why didn’t you stop that part,” tweeted student Aly Sheehy Friday, referring to Scott. “Don’t stand there and say you disagree with it when you hold the power to put an end to it.”

The Tampa Bay Times, 3/13/18, Some Parkland survivors are underwhelmed by Florida’s new gun bill

• “Gov. Rick Scott made national headlines… But some survivors of the Parkland school shooting say the Legislature didn’t go far enough. “Gov. Scott is trying to look like he’s taking a step in the opposite of the direction of the NRA, but we know that’s not really going to happen,” Cameron Kasky, a student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, told Anderson Cooper during a CNN hitearly Saturday. 
• “(Scott and Republican Sen. Marco Rubio) are STILL taking money from the NRA,” David Hogg, Kasky’s classmate and another vocal supporter of gun control, tweeted the day the bill passed. “The only reason they took action is because we did.”