TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Six months ago Florida lawmakers approved spending $67 million on a program to arm non-instructional school personnel.
All but $9 million of that funding has gone untouched, with nearly two-thirds of school districts declining to enroll in the program.
- Guardian Program signed into law in March
- Local school board members very hesitant to embrace program
- Legislators want to give school districts more time to come around to program
But top Republicans don't intend to divert the cash to other priorities. In fact, they pointedly rebuffed a request by Gov. Rick Scott to devote the remaining dollars to helping districts hire more school resource officers.
The so-called Guardian Program was part of the sweeping gun violence prevention package prompted by February's school massacre in Parkland. It was also the most controversial component, seen by many Capitol insiders as a sweetener to convince pro-gun Republicans to embrace gun control legislation that would have stood little chance of passing before Parkland.
Despite signing the package into law, Scott opposed the program, which allows districts to implement training regimes for non-teachers like coaches and administrators to carry guns on campus.
"I still think law enforcement officers should be the ones to protect our schools," the governor said at the signing ceremony in March.
Local school board members have mostly been hesitant to embrace the program, citing the potential for deadly miscalculations.
But last week, the Legislative Budget Commission rejected Scott's request to use the remaining $58 million for hiring SROs, which many districts report has become a vexing challenge due to financial constraints.
Sen. Bill Galvano (R-Bradenton), the incoming senate president, said the Guardian Program needs more time to get off the ground.
"I've had conversations with sheriffs, and they say 'look, we're moving along this path', and this is something, a program that's building, a program that now is even being viewed as perhaps a hybrid between SROs and school guardians, and we could revisit later," Galvano told reporters.
Indeed, some districts that had initially been hesitant to opt in to the Guardian Program have since reversed course, viewing armed school employees as better than nothing in the face of a continuing shortage of SROs.
Notwithstanding the commission's decision to leave the Guardian Program funding untouched, the issue of school security will almost certainly be revisited during the 2019 legislative session, which begins next March.