The Flagler County School Board and Sheriff's Office are working to meet the requirements of a new school safety law, but there are some friction points.
BUNNELL — As Flagler school officials work with the Sheriff’s Office to fulfill mandates set forth in a new statewide school-security law, some stumbling blocks remain. At a School Board workshop session this week, the two parties even disagreed on one of the core issues: Who’s responsible?
“I feel very strongly that this isn’t just the school district’s responsibility,” said School Board member Colleen Conklin, who attended Tuesday's workshop meeting via conference call. “This is a countywide responsibility.”
“The responsibility for school safety is the School Board’s,” said Sheriff Rick Staly during a break in the meeting.
The disagreement arises from what local officials see as an underfunded mandate handed down by the state with Gov. Rick Scott’s signing of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act on March 9. The law is named for the Parkland school where 17 people were shot and killed on Feb. 14.
During the workshop, Staly said the law does not require counties to help with funding. Nevertheless, Flagler County is planning to fund 50 percent of Staly’s $1,777,442 proposal for a total of 13 school resource deputies.
But on the school district side, funding falls $88,000 short of what that would be required, which prompted School Board member Maria Barbosa to ask that the county provide more funding while board member Andy Dance questioned the need for 13 deputies when 11 would meet the law’s requirements.
The clock is ticking. Staly said that if an agreement cannot be reached in the next couple of weeks, he cannot have deputies placed in every school by the beginning of the 2019-20 academic year.
“It can’t happen,” he said.
Staly pointed out that the additional deputies will need to give notice to their supervisors and then undergo three months of training before they can be activated as resource officers. Also, he is required to submit his budget to the County Commission by the end of this month.
The state law offers variations on armed security within the schools. A school district could, for instance, start its own police department or arm administrators — something Superintendent James Tager has signaled he won’t do.
Flagler school officials want to contract with the Sheriff’s Office for the school resource deputies. Currently, the district and county have an interlocal agreement providing six deputies, but the new law requires one at each of the county's nine public schools and two charter schools.
According to Staly, the cost of providing resource deputies last year was $741,000. The county paid 79 percent of that cost, the district paid 21 percent.
Staly is recommending two deputies at each of the county's two high schools. One would be a line supervisor, the other a commander over the entire program.
“I think to do this job properly and protect our students in the schools, it takes 13 people,” Staly said. He initially wanted 14 — one for relief should another deputy call in sick or have required training — but nixed that in an attempt to make the funding work.
Still, he acknowledged the School Board’s authority to agree to only the 11 mandated by the new law.
“If they want to reduce the amount of deputies in a high school, that’s their decision,” he said. “I will go on record as I don’t recommend that.”
County Commission Chair Gregory Hansen attended Tuesday’s meeting and said he agrees with Staly, calling his approach fair.
“He is giving them more than a good deal,” Hansen said. “He has taken a lot of the burden of this expense on, and we’re paying for it.”
In addition to providing deputies, the sheriff’s Domestic Homeland Security department is conducting free security assessments that will pave the way for district officials to apply for grants from the state that could be used for such things as metal detectors, bulletproof glass, steel doors and upgraded locks.
Staly said that an outside consultant might have charged the district as much as $100,000 to do those assessments.
Part of the district’s shortfall is due to a funding formula set forth in the state's Safe Schools program, which has been in place since 1994. Two-thirds of that funding is calculated according to the most recent Florida Department of Law Enforcement Crime Index. Districts with high crime rates receive proportionately more money. Because crime in Flagler County is relatively low, the district receives a lower amount, about $280,000 annually, $50,000 of which must go to the charter schools.
But because the new law mandates one resource officer per school regardless of the crime rate, Staly said this levels the playing field and that the state needs to “fix” the formula accordingly. He suggested the district find the $88,000 for now and then work with his office to lobby for change to the formula, which he said would resolve this shortfall in subsequent years.
School District attorney Kristy Gavin said Flagler is in a better position than many other districts because years ago the board chose to build fewer, larger schools. As a result, instead of having to staff 65 neighborhood schools, the district has only to staff nine, 11 including charters.
However, that factor seems also to support Staly’s recommendation for more school resource deputies. The number of faculty members and students at Flagler Palm Coast High School is equivalent to the population of Bunnell.
Calls for service
Flagler County Sheriff's Office calls for service from at the county's two high schools since the beginning of the school year:
-Matanzas High School had 542 calls for service, FPC had 509.
-There have been 18 charging affidavits filed at Matanzas, 23 at FPC.
-Eight people were arrested at Matanzas, six at FPC.
SOURCE: Flagler County Sheriff's Office