The rift between the Broward County School Board and local municipalities over school resource officers seems to be over.
A few weeks ago, the Broward League of Cities and the Broward Police Chiefs Association ripped the board for not having reimbursed cities this school year at all, not a single dollar, for the 200 SROs they provide to the public schools. City officials and cops came back to the school board Tuesday.
“Let me just remind this board that it’s the school district’s responsibility to provide a safe school officer, municipalities are happy to be a partner in this, but we just want to be reimbursed a fair share,” said Hollywood Police Chief Chris O’Brien.
This time, the board members didn’t need a reminder, each of them know the importance and value of school resource officers.
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“It’s upon us now to show that we are gonna step up,” said board member Torey Alston.
“We need to be paying them what they’re worth,” added board member Debbi Hixon, who lost her husband in the Parkland massacre. “As I said the other day, if we have people that don’t come home, it doesn’t matter what we do, so it’s important that we figure this out.”
Once the board got the financial go-ahead from the deputy superintendent, they had a green light to give the police departments what they wanted.
“We can afford to pay 200 SROs at a rate of $103,000 per SRO,” said deputy superintendent Judy Marte, who oversees the district’s finances.
The board then voted to give the police agencies and cities what they’ve been asking for, which is a reimbursement of $103,000 per SRO per year.
“So I think the board did an amazing thing to kind of put their money where their mouth is in the sense of paying our SROs $103,000 per year not only for this year but for the next three years, we have a partnership, we value them,” said board chair Lori Alhadeff, who did express concern that the district does not have the funding to pay that $103,000 level for the remainder of this year.
Alhadeff said other security priorities will have to be postponed in order to pay that rate this year, whereas there is money available for the next three years.
The next step is for the cities to approve the agreement.
