Updates on the Fight for Quality Public Education in Brevard County, FL
0:00 Thank you.
25:29 legislature did provide made it not an unfunded mandate but
25:17 definitely only a
25:18 partially funded mandate and through the years because I know
25:22 the City Council
25:23 member Johnson particularly mentioned maybe we need to go to
25:25 legislature ask
25:26 for more money I to that I would say that FSBA and other
25:30 organizations have
25:30 asked this board has asked in the past legislative items asking
25:33 for more money
25:34 for security and we have a different legislature that may change
25:37 now but what
25:39 was said to us in the past was we don’t need to give you any
25:41 more money because
25:42 you can do it more cheaply you can use guardians and when they
25:45 mean guardians
25:45 they mean like the undercover guardians which we have now
25:48 approved but we could
25:49 use that to fulfill that same requirement even if we use
25:52 security specialists in
25:53 every school that would also be less expensive we could probably
25:56 get under our
25:56 allocation if we did security specialist as our safe schools
26:01 officer for every
26:02 building so the legislature hasn’t been willing through previous
26:07 years they have
26:08 increased it some but they haven’t been willing to increase it
26:11 to cost because
26:12 they’re saying you don’t have to have an SRO in every school you
26:14 could do it more
26:14 cheaply so that’s just a fact that the that that could be done
26:19 cheaper and that
26:19 the legislature has had that those thoughts so we just need to
26:23 we just need to
26:23 understand that through the years that’s that’s what when it
26:26 comes to the
26:26 funding and what some districts have done to get around this
26:30 having to
26:31 negotiate is they have developed their own police force and we
26:35 are
26:35 authorized to do that I ought to be completely honest regardless
26:40 of how much of a pain this
26:41 has been and it might be moving forward I I’m not interested in
26:46 that but I’m not
26:47 saying that we it’s out of the realm of possibility and if it if
26:49 it were ever to
26:50 get crazy we have had such a great relationship with our sheriff
26:54 we have had such a great
26:56 relationship in general with our municipalities and with our our
27:00 chiefs
27:00 and the law enforcement offices around the county I feel like
27:04 that has been a
27:05 strength for us and the way they communicate especially when I
27:07 talk to my peers around the state that is that is not how it is
27:11 in all
27:11 across the county including some very large counties to the west
27:14 of us
27:15 so I just wanted to be clear that it is the board’s decision if
27:23 we’re if if Palm Bay pulls out if they say we’re not going to do
27:27 this anymore if they don’t sign the agreement if we don’t change
27:29 our terms and they don’t vote to approve that contract if Palm
27:32 Bay pulls out it is the board’s decision. I mean we what we are
27:35 required to do according to the law is have an armed person
27:38 there. We could put a security specialist there. They don’t get
27:41 to say it.
27:41 If they’re going to pull out they don’t get to determine what
27:43 gets to replace it.
27:45 We could have another option. When I had my first conversation
27:50 with the sheriff what he said to me was I don’t have any more
27:52 people to go. That doesn’t mean we can’t go ask but just to be
27:58 clear my thought and I’ve shared with every single one of these
28:02 guys is that these are their children.
28:04 They’re their residents. They’re their residents. It is a 2,000
28:08 plus person event on two campuses every school day and a 1,000
28:13 plus person event on the southwest middle school campus every
28:13 day. It’s a lot of people in an enclosed space and they’re their
28:13 kids and their citizens, their residents and people who are
28:14 guests if they don’t live in Palm Bay but they work there. They’re
28:14 their guests. So I feel very strongly about that. Thank you, Dr.
28:14 Mendel for showing that the safe schools allocation does not
28:14 have a
28:14 cover everything. It doesn’t even cover all our SROs much less
28:19 the guardians and all the other things that we are required to
28:21 do like the app.
28:22 The rave app. The rave app. We have to have some kind of a what’s
28:24 it called panic button service that we’re provided. And then,
28:29 you know, of course, the other things that are required to do
28:30 like the app.
28:31 The rave app. The rave app. We have to have some kind of a what’s
28:35 it called panic button service that we’re provided. And then,
28:38 you know, of course, other things that we want to do.
28:42 The rave app. We have to have some kind of a panic button
28:48 service that we’re provided. And then, you know, of course,
28:51 other things that are required to do.
28:51 And then, you know, of course, other things we can cover with
28:53 capital, like fencing and things. But there are requirements
28:56 under the Martyrs, Stoneman Douglas Act that that money is
28:57 supposed to pay for besides just SROs.
29:01 The letter, when I was pulling up all the reimbursement amounts,
29:07 what Dr. Mendel showed you was the $52,000 in the first year.
29:11 And just notice, because the public can’t see it, we have
29:15 increased our flat fee reimbursement every year except for the
29:19 second year.
29:20 That was the only year that the board did not give more money
29:22 each year. So I think that shows that we’re willing to negotiate,
29:26 that we’re willing to do what we can when we’ve gotten more
29:29 funding from the state.
29:30 And even when we haven’t gotten more funding from the state, we
29:33 have been agreeable. I mean, honestly, we’re kind of at a loss.
29:36 We don’t really – we have to have them. Right? We have to have
29:39 them.
29:40 So we’re at a little bit of a disadvantage when we get those
29:43 negotiations, but we have made those negotiations, and we have
29:46 increased it every year. But I wanted to go earlier, because it’s
29:49 my memory, and I needed to go to someone who had a better memory.
29:52 So I called our former COO, Dr. Mullins, who was a COO at the
29:55 time. He was also a principal down in Palm Bay at Southwest
29:59 Middle School for years, and I needed his historic knowledge of
30:02 how much we were paying previous to Marjory Stoneman Douglas.
30:06 So he had a good memory, and said yes, when he was a principal
30:09 at Southwest, which was in like the early 2000s, even Southwest
30:12 Middle School had an SRO. And so did Heritage High School. So
30:16 did Bayside High School. They have had SROs through the years.
30:20 The reimbursement rate previous to Marjory Stoneman Douglas was
30:24 $33,000. We paid $33,000, which was the time – at the time,
30:28 what he recalled was it was supposed to pay for about half of
30:32 what their salary was – or what it was supposed to pay for
30:34 their salary through the 10 months that we would have.
30:36 And then the city paid for the rest. So when Marjory Stoneman
30:41 Douglas happened, and like Dr. Randell said, Melbourne and Palm
30:45 Bay are the biggest. They had the most schools to cover. They
30:48 said, we can’t do more than we are already doing.
30:50 I remember those conversations. So they said, we can only
30:53 provide SROs to the three schools that we’re already providing
30:57 them for. And I’m not dealing with – the charters can work out
31:00 their own thing. That’s not our contract.
31:03 But the three schools are already providing. And so really, from
31:07 the $33,000, even in that first contract, they went from $33,000
31:11 to $52,000. So – and then, of course, we’ve gone up every year.
31:15 So I just wanted to be clear. And I’m going to – as – if – if
31:19 the city of Palm Bay pulls out now, they will be doing less than
31:23 they have ever done, at least for decades.
31:27 I’m extremely disappointed. I’m extremely disappointed. This has
31:33 been very frustrating. And I’ve had serious, heart-to-heart
31:35 conversations. And – and – and – and I will continue to have
31:38 those conversations.
31:39 I just want to make sure that the right information is out there.
31:42 If they’re going to make the decision, they need to have all the
31:45 information.
31:45 That the city of Palm Bay has, for decades, supported the
31:48 schools by putting an officer in – and schools on – in their
31:51 property, under their jurisdiction, and with their children.
31:55 And I know we’re all facing budget scary times. And especially,
32:02 you know, if – who knows what’s going to happen with the
32:03 property taxes in the next couple years. I can’t even imagine
32:06 how scary that is for them.
32:07 But this is something they’ve always done. We’ve continued to
32:10 increase our part. And so I just want to make sure that the
32:13 language is clear. Because they’ve now had two meetings in the
32:17 sunshine talking about it.
32:17 But I don’t think – I know for a fact that the information that
32:19 what they’re saying is not accurate. Not because they’re lying,
32:22 but because they don’t have the full picture.
32:24 So hopefully between the phone calls I’ve had with them and
32:26 other people have had with them – and Dr. Randell, thank you
32:28 for sitting down with – with them a couple of times.
32:30 Hopefully they have full information, especially after today, so
32:33 they can make the best decision. But I – I – board, my
32:38 recommendation is for us to stay right there at 77,000. I think
32:41 it’s fair.
32:42 We’ve increased it. We’re also cutting in many areas. We’re
32:45 already pulling out of our general operating fund, which is
32:48 supposed to be mainly used for educating kids.
32:50 It’s also to keep them safe. We’re doing that so that we can
32:54 increase it. It is very likely next year when we have to renegotiate
32:57 the sheriff’s contract.
32:58 I mean, I don’t – you know, I’m not going to be here, but it’s
33:00 very likely he’s going to come back and ask him for more, which
33:02 is fair, right?
33:03 And we’ve always been open to negotiate.
33:05 And he brings a gun when he does that.
33:07 And he brings – yeah.
33:08 So I – I think we need to just hold the line and let it be
33:12 their decision.
33:13 And then if we have to rely on the sheriff – I’m going to say
33:17 this other thing – if we have to rely on the sheriff to provide
33:21 sheriff deputies to fill in those gaps,
33:23 and we decide not to use security specialists only to meet that
33:27 legislative mandate, to me, that is all of the county helping to
33:34 subsidize security for those schools.
33:38 And I’m just going to leave it at that for now.
33:42 Thank you, Ms. Campbell.
33:44 Mr. Thomas?
33:45 I always hate speaking after Ms. Campbell because she always
33:47 does such a good job of articulating everything.
33:50 So you’ve covered a lot of points.
33:51 I don’t – I won’t rehash those.
33:53 I will tell you guys that, you know, my background – I’m
33:57 retired law enforcement.
33:58 There was a short time where I was an SRO.
34:00 I ran the Police Athletic League for a number of years.
34:03 And I understand the value of having police officers having
34:07 relationships with students and with kids.
34:10 And I had a long conversation with Sheriff Ivey.
34:13 And I can tell you there’s nobody – no law enforcement officer
34:16 in the county that appreciates that – those relationships more
34:19 than him as well.
34:20 I think that the cities have a direct benefit.
34:25 And we can provide armed safety officers at every school.
34:29 And, you know, if that’s what we had to do, that’s what we’d
34:31 have to do.
34:32 We don’t have, you know, the financial means to provide, you
34:35 know, SROs, full officers, funding SROs at every school.
34:40 But if we had to provide armed safety officers, we would do what
34:42 we have to do.
34:43 But that would leave the cities without the opportunity to
34:47 invest in their own city.
34:49 And there – these – I think the one thing that gets missed in
34:52 this whole conversation is, is that –
34:54 that by the cities investing and they’re putting their own
34:56 police officers in the schools,
34:58 they’re building a bridge between their schools, their kids, and
35:02 their community.
35:03 And we can put a safety officer or a sheriff’s deputy in there.
35:07 But that defeats a lot of the benefits of a police officer
35:10 having those relationships direct, you know, from their own city.
35:15 So that’s a huge benefit that I want every city to take
35:18 advantage of.
35:19 I think most cities appreciate that.
35:21 I appreciate where Palm Bay’s going as far as trying to, you
35:24 know, pinch every penny.
35:26 Certainly get that.
35:27 We are too.
35:28 But there, I think they need to make sure that they recognize
35:31 the benefits that they have by having SROs in their schools
35:34 and maybe even increase the number of officers they have.
35:37 That being said, you know, I don’t believe we have the financial
35:43 flexibility to increase the contract.
35:47 I think that we need to stand where we’re at.
35:49 I think we need to let the sheriff’s contract be the standard.
35:52 I think that he does his best to make the most out of the money
35:55 that we have and the money that we can provide them.
35:58 The one thing I do appreciate, I had a conversation with Deputy
36:03 Mayor Jaffe from Palm Bay.
36:04 And he made a comment that I think that is, I think that’s
36:08 something we could all jump on.
36:09 And that is, he goes, you know, where I’d really like to see all
36:12 this go is that we all get together and lobby the state to
36:15 provide full funding for SROs.
36:18 And I think that’s a great idea.
36:20 I think every sheriff’s association, every school district, and
36:23 every city, we should all team together and ask the state to
36:26 fully fund what our SROs cost.
36:28 Not a safety specialist or, you know, a safety officer, but a
36:32 fully, you know, fully armed SRO.
36:35 I think that would be much better than putting us in the
36:38 position or us in the cities in the position of having to
36:40 negotiate.
36:41 So that’s where I stand on it.
36:45 Okay.
36:46 okay gene not to repeat and repeat and repeat but you know as we
36:56 get going by the time it gets to
36:57 you mr chair you’re not gonna have anything to say all right
37:01 yeah wishful thinking there huh
37:03 but uh absolutely um great uh great comments there and john um
37:07 thank you for doing what you did as
37:10 an sro i’ve had the pleasure uh to work with multiple sros in my
37:13 career and and to see them
37:16 establish that relationship with the students is remarkable i
37:20 mean it is uh you can’t put a cost
37:22 on that and it’s such a benefit for the community um to to build
37:26 those relationships i mean because
37:28 those are the students those are the the citizens that they see
37:31 out on the streets you know in the
37:33 evenings and the weekends in the summers and even uh as they
37:36 graduate and get out of school those
37:38 relationships uh continue so the the cost benefit for these
37:42 cities um you can’t put a dollar amount
37:45 on that so i hope we keep those uh as well i i’m just going to
37:48 get right to it i i agree we should
37:50 keep the sheriff’s uh contract as a standard there’s no reason
37:53 for us to deviate from that and imagine
37:55 that um the domino effect that would happen if we if we tried to
38:00 cherry pick a a certain school or
38:03 city uh and i’m just not willing to do that at this point and uh
38:06 john to your point to uh petition the
38:09 state i think that’s great we should always be advocating for um
38:13 you know more funding for
38:14 you know extremely important things and i think this might be a
38:18 good time i think we have a few
38:20 gentlemen out there that’s running for governor and those would
38:23 be some very good questions
38:25 and asks of them uh if they were able to uh become the next
38:29 governor of florida if they would champion
38:31 that so i think that’s where we need to go so that’s all mr
38:35 chair thank you mr mr wright all
38:38 right um i’m gonna take this moment right now to just go ahead
38:41 and thank brevard county sheriff’s
38:42 office they supply sros to our schools they 34 out of 34 schools
38:46 they’re covered and so when we know
38:48 the sheriffs are in there we know that they’re safe they have
38:50 their firearms strapped across their chest
38:52 i love their uniform i think other municipalities other sheriff’s
38:55 departments all around the country
38:57 look at those and go that really sends the message that security
39:00 is serious here uh in brevard county
39:03 so i want to thank them want to thank titusville as well so you
39:05 know i represent district one and so
39:07 titusville nine out of nine they put an sro in every single one
39:10 of titusville schools and they never
39:12 waiver on that uncompromising 100 coverage and so you know when
39:16 i look at this and i understand where
39:18 they’re coming from on this being a budget constraint driven
39:22 conversation but we put our money where
39:26 where we value it the most and when it comes to the security and
39:28 the safety of our children in our
39:30 schools that’s not just the sheriff’s responsibility that’s not
39:33 just but it’s about to everybody that’s
39:35 all hands on deck and so that’s an investment and that’s saying
39:39 hey we 100 are behind the mission of
39:41 ensuring that these schools are safe and so this conversation
39:44 coming up over a municipality that
39:46 provides three sros is a little bit alarming to me they have
39:50 three they three out of what do we have
39:52 14 traditional bps schools so probably are they the smallest i
39:56 mean they maybe largest no i mean as
39:58 far as the smallest percentage of coverage that they provide
40:01 into the school they are one of the smaller
40:03 ones and so i understand where the conversation is coming from
40:06 but at the end of the day as you said
40:08 miss campbell these are their kids these are our kids these are
40:10 the entire community’s kids and so
40:12 we all have a responsibility there the sheriff’s office has been
40:15 very gracious they they take on
40:17 this contract at a financial loss to themselves every single
40:19 year because they understand the value
40:21 of the service that they’re providing to our community so i had
40:24 conversations with sheriff ivy about
40:25 this he’s always been the one to really lead the charge when it
40:28 comes to these contracts and you
40:30 know the conversation that we had was very clear his message was
40:33 if palm bay doesn’t want to cover those schools there’s no way
40:36 in hell i’m going to leave them unprotected so i will take them
40:39 but palm bay is missing out on a phenomenal opportunity as has
40:43 been stated here so i’m hoping that they look
40:45 at this a little different and reshape their their mentality
40:47 around it and and come alongside us
40:49 and i’m 100 for advocating and lobbying you know the legislator
40:52 to maybe give us some more dollars
40:54 towards school security because obviously that’s the number one
40:56 priority making sure children are
40:57 safe in our schools so i’m right with you guys stay where we’re
41:00 at let the sheriff be the the chief
41:02 negotiator and really the municipality seem to all but one
41:05 really agree with that that mentality so i i’d say we
41:08 stay where we’re at as well thank you so much i think um you
41:11 guys have all stated a lot of really
41:12 good things i’m just going to kind of re reaffirm some of it and
41:15 bring some other uh facts to it the
41:17 first thing is is that when we started this uh security special
41:21 not before we had the security
41:23 specialist we had sros and our relationship um with many of the
41:27 school or cities was similar they can
41:30 whether they covered them or they didn’t cover them and then we
41:32 were completely blindsided by majority
41:35 stoneman the amount of revenue that it was costing the amount of
41:38 money that it took us to undertake
41:40 that project and the sheriff was amazing like to say that we
41:44 were going to bring in 30 to 35 specialists
41:47 find qualified qualified people inside of our county that could
41:50 go into our schools and take it over
41:52 train them and everything else was beyond one of the biggest
41:55 accomplishments anybody’s ever had in our
41:57 school district and the fear that it put into everybody that
42:01 this was not something that was less than 120
42:03 miles from from here majority stoneman douglas says it’s it’s
42:07 not far at all from here so it made it
42:09 rattled home and all of a sudden conversations like what mr thomas
42:12 was saying about the connection to
42:14 the community the reason we need sros inside the schools and all
42:16 the great things that they do
42:18 came up and when this kind of came to me um and for full intents
42:23 and purposes i was never even
42:25 contacted i had to reach out to them and say hey what’s going on
42:27 right um so i did and mr johnson and i’ve been
42:30 going back and forth and stuff like that but there’s a
42:33 difference between our security specialists jobs
42:37 and what the sro’s jobs are and so many people may go on campus
42:42 and may know that the sro is there to
42:44 bridge the gap to create the relationships to do those things to
42:47 answer the police and law enforcement
42:49 and everything else if you take the time to respond to a school
42:53 and you look at when a school calls the police
42:56 officers saying palm bay or anywhere that does not have an sro
42:59 and the schools that do the immediate
43:02 response is incredible right but that’s a different job than the
43:06 securities pressure security specialist
43:08 is just protecting the perimeter making sure that everything is
43:10 safe there is there is not a huge
43:13 connection to the to the schools not a huge connection to the
43:16 police um pal leagues and everything else
43:19 so one of the things that i was looking at was you know this
43:23 this is unfortunate because they’re bringing
43:26 forward a connection or some numbers that i feel are not
43:30 completely solid like i i don’t think that
43:33 when we look at it to bring us that every single sr or sro that’s
43:37 working inside of our schools is making
43:39 the exact same amount and it’s the highest amount that they have
43:42 i was looking for a better number
43:43 and we have some questions like over some of the days that they
43:46 actually work and stuff like that
43:47 the reason is is i wanted to let you guys know when we first did
43:51 this we looked at how many days does
43:54 the actual sro work inside of our schools compared to their
43:57 salary that was the number where we started
43:59 ramping up and a lot of that had to do with the conversations
44:03 that yes they are not full-time
44:06 here they have road duty many of them afterwards so what happens
44:10 is is during thanksgivings during
44:12 christmases during days off inside of our schools for the whole
44:15 month of july for partial months
44:17 depending on if we have summer school they’re off so i i was
44:20 trying to get that number i was working
44:22 to try to find out that number but it varies based on school so
44:26 i’m trying to get those numbers at the
44:28 schools but when somebody says that we have to pay a hundred
44:31 percent of the salary of an individual
44:33 that’s not even there one hundred percent of the time i think
44:35 there’s a disconnect and i think like
44:37 i think mr thomas said it um i think they’re looking serious at
44:41 each one of their deficient areas for
44:43 for cost right um we don’t fault them for any of that and there’s
44:47 a lot of things that we can do
44:49 collaboratively with palm bay to reduce costs on in other areas
44:54 so i think in general i support
44:57 miss campbell and everybody else’s um conversation that we
45:01 actually turn around and say no we’re not
45:03 going to renegotiate the contract if you want to negotiate
45:05 through the sheriff however you want to
45:07 do that but we’re not going to go and do that i wanted you guys
45:10 to look at this as a plan um right
45:13 now we already have we’re only required to have an armed
45:15 security specialist at each one of our schools
45:18 we already have one in bayside southwest um heritage is the only
45:22 one that doesn’t have one so technically
45:25 to protect the schools and to have the right we only need one
45:28 more security specialist to fill
45:29 the spot now that’s not what we would want we would want sros we
45:32 would want all the rest of
45:33 them to be inside there but just from a perspective of cost and
45:36 perspective of it i checked in with mr
45:38 klein he said absolutely we could find um the you know we’re we’re
45:42 very thin right now but we could
45:44 definitely find somebody to be inside of there so um that’s the
45:47 first thing the other thing is is i want
45:49 to try to figure out i want to try to figure out the total days
45:53 that each one of them works right
45:55 i also want to find out their actual true salary is the actual
45:58 true fringe and everything else
46:00 and then i wanted to also find out what these charters are
46:03 paying these sros too because those
46:05 contracts are a little bit different what are they actually
46:07 paying and what’s going on there and i
46:09 you know i kind of odyssey charter elementary school is that on
46:13 the same campus as they have so the the
46:17 only you’re looking at the right column there’s only one charter
46:20 school that has an sro and that’s
46:22 that yeah odyssey and they it’s my understanding that they kind
46:27 of use our contract as a piggyback
46:29 okay so they they reimburse right they use a piggyback but all
46:32 the other charter schools they use as
46:34 security specialists that are trained through our through the
46:36 sheriff’s same program but i remember
46:38 they stole a couple of our people but the reason i was saying
46:41 that is is because i wanted to
46:42 be able to reach out to them and say hey this is also going to
46:45 affect you if that’s the case
46:47 and i just i really think that we can it’s been something that
46:52 suhan and i talked about
46:54 work with palm bay on collaborative things for instance we’re
46:57 bringing in those clinics those clinics are
46:59 going to be shared sites possibly if we decide to do that could
47:02 save them inwards between one and
47:03 two million dollars on their actual health care costs there’s a
47:07 hundred other ways we can work
47:09 together on community developments there’s many dollars that we
47:12 both spend from their hud housing
47:13 for their low-income students to what we put in for our stem
47:16 stuff like there’s there’s dollars
47:18 everywhere that we can work together i would i love the
47:21 opportunity to work on a lot of those things
47:24 but as of right now i am a hard no on renegotiating and i’m
47:28 definitely
47:29 not um going to go and start even talking about this until we
47:32 actually get true numbers and we
47:34 actually find out the true the the individuals that are in there
47:38 miss campbell you you specifically
47:40 stated have not been in since this thing came in i may be the
47:43 only board member that was actually
47:44 part of the conversation but we did it specifically based on how
47:47 many days they work we don’t just pay
47:49 a hundred percent of salary because that’s what they you know
47:51 they’re they’re going back to the road
47:53 and stuff like that there’s no reason for us to cover that cost
47:55 so with that i say no and i but i will
47:58 um pull these information and i’ll get it back to you so that we
48:01 can have a hard understanding
48:03 because i’m sure that this will come back up in the future so
48:06 that’s it um dr rendella do you have
48:07 anything no i have clear direction from the board i do want to
48:10 kind of finish on a positive note you
48:12 know mr thomas talked about it being an investment yep having a
48:16 school resource officer from the local
48:18 pd department or the sheriff’s office on the campus developing
48:22 those relationships i want to remind
48:23 everybody that we just celebrated chris hadaway the sro at rockledge
48:28 he’s a rockledge pd officer that’s on
48:30 rockledge high school’s campus every day as the state employee
48:34 of the year and so that shows what the
48:37 investment can turn into and when we made that announcement at
48:41 the school you know the chief of
48:45 the rockledge pd was there there were all kinds of other rockledge
48:47 pd officers that wanted to be there and
48:49 were there there was even some emts and fire rescue people there
48:52 because it’s a community investment in
48:56 that school and so that’s what we want you know so that’s the
49:00 goal and i would hope every city wants
49:03 to be a part of that that’s it
49:33 you