Updates on the Fight for Quality Public Education in Brevard County, FL
5:00 .
8:50 » Good morning. May 12th, 2026 work session is now in order.
8:55 Roll call, please. Here.
9:00 » Here. » Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.
9:04 » I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of
9:09 America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation,
9:11 under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
9:14 » Dr. Andel, can you speak to the board about the items on the
9:20 agenda for today?
9:21 » Thank you, Mr. Chair. We just have one topic on the agenda
9:25 today.
9:26 » Hang on, you’re muted.
9:27 » Oh, hang on.
9:28 » Oh, there we go.
9:29 » Whoa.
9:37 » We just have one topic on the agenda today. It’s a discussion
9:41 of the school resource officer agreement with the city of Palm
9:41 Bay.
9:42 So we’ll give you a little bit of history lesson and some
9:44 background and then we can start the discussion.
9:47 A couple weeks ago, Mr. Thomas actually informed me that the
9:51 city of Palm Bay was wanting to negotiate an increase in the
9:55 amount of money that we reimbursed them for.
9:58 The cost of SROs that they place in our schools.
10:01 And went back and watched the city council meeting prior to that
10:05 and it is the point of discussion from the city of Palm Bay.
10:09 So I informed them that we would put this on a workshop agenda
10:13 to be discussed today.
10:15 So a couple things.
10:16 I put together a packet of information for each of you.
10:19 So I’m going to kind of do a little bit of discussion about the
10:22 information in your packet.
10:24 But first, a little history lesson. Ever since the Marjory Stoneman
10:28 Douglas tragedy, we’ve been required to have an armed safety
10:32 officer at every school building, elementary, middle and high
10:35 school.
10:36 Prior to that, we actually had school resource officers mostly
10:38 in our high schools and some middle schools.
10:41 So we’ve had SROs on our high school campuses for many, many
10:44 years, decades.
10:46 But after Marjory Stoneman Douglas, we’re required to have one
10:49 in every single school, elementary, middle, high, any building.
10:54 So we negotiated with the sheriff’s department for the contract
10:58 for the SROs because that is, the sheriff’s department does
11:02 provide the bulk of the SROs, the largest number of SROs or SRDs
11:06 at our schools.
11:09 Also, in the statutory language about the safety act, the
11:12 sheriff’s office is the licensing or certification entity for
11:16 school safety specialists, anybody that’s going to serve in that
11:20 role has to be certified by the local sheriff.
11:24 So negotiating with the sheriff on the SRO contract made sense.
11:28 We do have municipalities, all of our municipalities pretty much
11:31 provide SROs to the schools in their city limits.
11:35 And so what we do is we negotiate with the sheriff for an
11:38 agreement for the SROs for the reimbursement and the duties and
11:41 so on.
11:42 And then we offer the same deal, so to speak, to all the
11:45 municipalities.
11:47 And so for the last nine years, everybody said this is a fine
11:50 working arrangement.
11:52 We negotiate with the sheriff and then everybody gets the same
11:55 deal.
11:56 The city of Palm Bay is asking us to negotiate their contract
11:59 separately, which, I mean, we do, it’s a separate agreement, but
12:03 we typically give everybody the same deal, the same amount, the
12:06 same reimbursement.
12:08 And that’s kind of the history.
12:11 So in your packet, one of the first things in your packet is a
12:14 list of the schools in Palm Bay.
12:16 This shows which schools the Palm Bay Police Department do
12:23 provide an SRO to. There are 21 schools in the city limits of
12:25 Palm Bay, including charters.
12:26 So 14 traditional and seven charters.
12:29 Right now, Palm Bay provides four officers total of those 21
12:33 schools, three in our traditional schools and one at a charter
12:37 school.
12:38 So they’re covering four out of the 21.
12:40 On that page, I also list the other municipalities and their
12:45 coverage.
12:48 And you can see that all the other municipalities except
12:51 Melbourne cover 100% of the schools in their jurisdiction or in
12:54 their city limits, so to speak.
12:57 It’s understandable that Melbourne and Palm Bay might have
12:59 difficulty because they have the largest number of schools.
13:02 So I understand that.
13:04 So that’s the first piece of information.
13:06 Second piece of information in your packet is a list of all the
13:09 starting salaries of all the different municipalities and the BCSO.
13:13 So you can see that the starting salaries are in the 50s.
13:17 Typically, they’re not going to put a brand new officer or a
13:20 brand new deputy at a school as an SRO, but you can see kind of
13:23 where the starting salary is for each of those.
13:27 Keep in mind, the reimbursement on the table for the coming year
13:31 is $77,000 per SRO.
13:34 So you can do some math there.
13:37 The next piece of information that you have is the contract with
13:40 the agreement with the city of Palm Bay that we had offered for
13:46 this year,
13:48 this coming year, which has the figure of $77,000 per SRO in
13:52 there on page two.
13:54 And the entire agreement’s there, but again, it mirrors the BCSO
13:58 agreement and the other municipalities.
14:01 A couple more pieces of information in there is the amount for a
14:05 starting officer in Palm Bay.
14:09 And then the last piece of information in your packet is a list
14:12 of all the things the Sheriff’s Department does in addition to
14:15 providing SROs.
14:17 So for the same flat fee of $77 per SRO, the Sheriff’s
14:21 Department is providing a lot of additional services that the
14:24 other municipalities don’t.
14:26 They can’t in many cases. They’re not large enough departments
14:31 to do this, but the Sheriff’s Department provides all the
14:31 training over the summer,
14:33 all the updates training.
14:35 They provide service dogs to our campuses, five therapy canines,
14:41 two narcotics detection canines, and one firearm detection
14:45 canine.
14:46 They do all their screening for background here at the ASF and
14:49 stuff like that.
14:51 That’s a packet of information that I had prepared for you guys
14:55 to review as we consider a request from the city of Palm Bay
15:00 to increase the amount that we are reimbursing them for SROs.
15:04 I have two additional pieces of information for you.
15:06 One, you already were copied on, but I wanted to give you a copy
15:10 here.
15:11 You were copied electronically on an email.
15:13 This was my response to Councilman Johnson when he reached out
15:16 to the board regarding this matter of increasing the
15:19 compensation,
15:21 or reimbursement so to speak, for the SROs.
15:24 And so there’s on in this letter, which we sent to them last
15:28 week,
15:29 is kind of a historical snapshot of how much we have paid for
15:34 reimbursement for the SROs since 2018-19.
15:42 So $52,000 back in 18-19, $52,000 per SRO was our reimbursement
15:46 to the BCSO and all the municipalities,
15:50 and that’s increased quite a bit in nine years to the total of $77,000
15:54 for this agreement that we’re proposing for next year.
15:58 It’s a $25,000 increase, a 48% increase over nine years.
16:03 The increase is $2,500 this year from last year and $2,500 from
16:07 the previous year.
16:09 It’s a 3.4% increase this year in the amount of reimbursement.
16:14 Our employees are only getting a 2% increase, so that’s just for
16:19 context.
16:21 The other bit of information in the letter is the fact that we
16:25 do receive a categorical amount of funding
16:27 from the state in our budget for Safe Schools.
16:30 It’s called Safe Schools Allocation, and it began when this
16:32 requirement came about after Marjory Stoneman Douglas.
16:36 We spend every penny of that on SROs and then some.
16:40 So we aren’t funded by the state to cover the cost of the SROs.
16:46 We are into the general fund for over $1 million this year to
16:49 cover the cost of the SROs,
16:51 and next year the estimate is about $3 million to be in the
16:54 general fund.
16:55 So that’s just context for do we really have the ability to
16:58 increase the amount we’re giving,
17:01 even though we are increasing the amount we’re giving from last
17:04 year.
17:05 And the last piece of information I have for you is something
17:07 that you hadn’t seen yet.
17:08 I just got it yesterday.
17:10 So in their discussion, the city of Palm Bay did talk about what
17:16 does the reimbursement cover,
17:18 and should it cover the cost of the officer, their salary,
17:23 or is it the officer and their equipment and their vehicle and
17:26 things like that.
17:28 So it appears that Mr. Johnson asked for the cost of just the
17:32 salary of the SROs.
17:34 So it’s a front and back copy.
17:37 If you look at the chart on the back that has the numbers,
17:41 it looks like the salary is somewhere between $78,000 to $81,000
17:48 is what this data indicates for the SROs.
17:54 And then on the front side of the paper, which is a continuous
18:01 email,
18:02 is a figure from the city manager to Councilman Johnson saying
18:07 the total cost is $137,000, $136,695.
18:13 So salary alone appears to be $81,000 or so, and then with
18:19 fringe, it jumps to $137,000.
18:24 That’s quite a jump for fringe. That’s a 70 percent increase for
18:27 fringe.
18:28 So I don’t think our employees’ fringe costs that much,
18:32 but that’s the figure that Councilman Johnson received from Mr.
18:36 Morton.
18:37 If I may, what you guys are looking at is I asked Councilman
18:40 Johnson to give me the salaries,
18:43 the actual salaries of the individuals that are SROs at our
18:48 schools,
18:50 and I wanted the dollar amount of what they actually get paid.
18:54 They came back with this, which is $80,260.
18:59 I’ve checked with some of the other police officers in the area
19:02 and said that it is very unlikely that that is the actual salary
19:05 minus the fringe and benefits and everything else.
19:08 So what I’m doing is I’m also just to complete how some of these
19:12 things go.
19:13 We go back and forth and we never get down to the bottom of it.
19:16 I’m going to figure out how much those salaries are.
19:18 So just so you know, this came from that.
19:21 That’s what this comes from.
19:25 So just to finish my input before the Board discussion,
19:30 two weeks ago at their meeting, April 28th I think it was,
19:34 the agreement for the coming year was on their agenda to be
19:36 either approved or not,
19:38 and they tabled it until their second meeting in May.
19:42 So that will be on their agenda to either approve or deny at
19:45 their upcoming Council meeting.
19:48 The Sheriff’s Office, I believe, has already approved our
19:50 agreement with them.
19:51 I believe a lot of the other municipalities have already
19:53 approved our agreements with them.
19:54 So again, all of the other municipalities
19:59 use the same reimbursement figure as what we negotiate with the
20:04 Sheriff.
20:05 Dr. Endell, do you have the date of their Council meeting by any
20:07 chance?
20:08 I don’t want to say. It’s the 21st.
20:10 21st of May?
20:11 Thursday.
20:12 Thursday, yes.
20:13 All right. Thank you.
20:15 All right.
20:17 Yeah, I think a couple of you guys may want to go comments.
20:21 Ms. Campbell being the fact that it’s your area and Mr. Thomas’
20:26 area,
20:27 I think you guys have the bulk of however you feel like you want
20:30 to speak,
20:31 and then I’ll go to you guys if that’s okay.
20:33 Ms. Campbell or Mr. Thomas, Ms. Campbell, do you want to lead?
20:37 Thank you.
20:38 I’ll be happy to do this.
20:39 I’ve done a lot of work on this over the last couple weeks and
20:42 had lots of conversations.
20:43 And I wanted to start off by thanking the City Council members.
20:47 I have had at least one, if not two or three conversations with
20:50 four out of five City Council members over the last few weeks.
20:53 And I appreciate the conversations, the questions, and the
20:55 opportunity for me to even rant a little bit to them in those
20:58 conversations.
20:59 So I want to start that.
21:00 And I also want to start out by saying that I appreciate what
21:02 they’re trying to do.
21:03 They are trying to be protective of their city budget and the
21:05 dollars they’re interested with,
21:08 while recognizing that we are responsible to think about all the
21:11 cities that we work with as well as the county.
21:14 And so I do have – before I start what I had, I have a question
21:17 about –
21:18 I do understand fringe for officers is higher because they are
21:21 at a higher risk class than the average employees.
21:24 We have a few of staff in our district that would fit in that
21:27 higher FRS class.
21:29 But I do have serious questions about this if it includes, like,
21:32 overtime and things.
21:34 I’ll address that later.
21:37 Just an update.
21:38 They had a meeting last Thursday night.
21:39 It was not on the agenda.
21:40 It’s still on their 21st agenda.
21:41 They tabled it, too.
21:42 But they did bring it up as a point of discussion.
21:44 Councilman Johnson did.
21:46 And there really hasn’t been a lot of movement from what I can
21:48 tell and what each of their positions were.
21:51 They almost all spoke to it.
21:53 And Councilman Johnson said that they were going to ask for a 75%
21:58 reimbursement rate.
22:01 I have my thoughts.
22:02 I will just tell you – let me just start off with where I’m
22:05 going with.
22:06 That is, I don’t believe that we should change our offer,
22:08 especially with one municipality.
22:11 But I would have a serious problem with changing our offer
22:13 without being really able to understand what 75% means.
22:17 Because every city, I understand, even when we’ve negotiated
22:20 with a sheriff in the past, has an amount that is salary plus
22:24 benefits/fringe
22:26 and the cost of upkeep on the vehicle and the cost of their
22:29 weapons and ammunition training, all of that kind of stuff.
22:33 Everybody has that number.
22:35 But it was thrown out to their council members and from the city
22:40 manager that what we were offering was only 40% of what it cost
22:43 them.
22:45 And what one of the council members told me was a number that
22:47 was passed across the table to them was $142,000 in change.
22:52 So just doing the math, $77,000 is over 50%.
22:57 And it should cover all their salaries, my understanding.
23:00 So I definitely – if that is even a part of it, which I don’t
23:04 know, depending on how we go, that we even want to go there.
23:08 I don’t really want to go there.
23:09 But, again, 75% of what?
23:11 And that would have to be clearly defined for me as a decision
23:14 maker.
23:15 Because that 40 – on Thursday night, Councilman Johnson
23:19 mentioned that it was actually 45%.
23:22 If that includes overtime pay, it’s my understanding that when
23:25 our schools use our SROs for overtime for things like football
23:29 games or special events,
23:30 that the school pays for that.
23:31 Is that accurate, Dr. Endell?
23:32 That is correct.
23:33 That’s above the $77,000 reimbursement.
23:36 Any of those overtime duties are paid for those hours.
23:40 From the school budget?
23:41 By the school or whoever is requesting that.
23:42 Right, right.
23:43 Okay.
23:44 So that needs to be clarified.
23:45 Or if some of our – sometimes we have some of our SROs here
23:48 doing security for our meetings, we’re paying for that directly.
23:52 That’s above and beyond whatever the flat fee, correct?
23:55 That is correct.
23:56 Okay.
23:57 So that needs to be clarified.
24:00 So I went back with – because just so you guys know, the Palm
24:03 Bay City Council members, the earliest elected one was in 2018.
24:08 We actually ran at the same time.
24:10 So all of them were elected after Marjory Stoneman Douglas.
24:13 And so I kind of walked through the – how we came to the place
24:19 we were.
24:20 And for y’all – for the sake of the people who may be watching,
24:23 because this is a really serious topic, I’m going to walk very
24:26 briefly through some of that.
24:28 And that was in 2018 when the Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooting
24:30 happened, the legislature created a new mandate, which was that
24:33 we had to have an armed person on every single campus.
24:37 And even though we did, like Dr. Rendell said, have it at high
24:39 schools and some of our middle schools, not all high schools and
24:41 not all middle schools, we certainly didn’t have it at our
24:44 elementary schools, but all of a sudden we had to have an armed
24:46 person on every campus.
24:47 I remember because I was running that year, there was huge
24:49 conversations in the community about the guardian program.
24:53 And the board at the time, which Mr. Susan was on, came up with
24:55 this kind of hybrid, which a lot of school districts did, kind
24:58 of a hybrid model, which was the security specialist.
25:01 And one of the reasons for that was the crazy cost of putting an
25:05 SRO in every school, and it was going to be something like $7
25:09 million or something, and the safe schools allocation that the
25:14 legislature did.
25:15 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
25:26 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
25:38 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
25:52 specialists in every school that would also be less expensive we
25:55 could probably
25:55 get under our allocation if we did security specialist as our
26:00 safe schools
26:01 officer for every building so the legislature hasn’t been
26:05 willing through
26:06 previous years they have increased at some but they haven’t been
26:09 willing to
26:10 increase it to cost because they’re saying you don’t have to
26:13 have an SRO in
26:13 every school you could do it more cheaply so that’s just a fact
26:17 that the
26:17 that could be done cheaper and that the legislature has had that
26:20 those thoughts
26:21 so what they should need to we just need to understand that
26:24 through the years
26:24 that’s that’s what when it comes to the funding and what some
26:28 districts have
26:29 done to get around this having to negotiate is they have
26:33 developed their
26:33 own police force and we are authorized to do that I ought to be
26:38 completely
26:39 honest regardless of how much of a pain this has been and it
26:43 might be moving
26:44 forward I’m not interested in that but I’m not saying that week
26:48 it’s out of the
26:48 realm of possibility and if it were ever to get crazy we have
26:51 had such a great
26:52 relationship with our sheriff we have said had such a great
26:55 relationship in
26:57 general with our municipalities and with our our Chiefs and the
27:01 law enforcement
27:02 offices around the county I feel like that has been a strength
27:06 for us and the
27:06 way they communicate especially when I talk to my peers around
27:09 the state that
27:10 is that is not how it is in all across the county including some
27:12 very large
27:13 counties to the west of us so I just wanted to be clear that it
27:19 is the
27:20 board’s decision if we’re if if Palm Bay pulls out if they say
27:26 we’re not going to
27:27 do this anymore if they don’t sign the agreement we don’t change
27:29 our terms and
27:30 they don’t about to approve that contract of Palm Bay pulls out
27:33 it is a
27:33 board’s decision I mean we what we are required to do according
27:36 to the law is
27:37 have an armed person there we could put a security specialist
27:40 there they don’t
27:41 get say if they’re gonna pull out they don’t get to determine
27:43 what gets to
27:44 replace it and we we could have another option I it is when I
27:48 had my first
27:49 conversation with the sheriff what he said to me was I don’t
27:51 have any more
27:52 people to go that doesn’t mean we can’t go ask but just to be
27:57 clear my thought
27:59 and I’ve shared with every single one of these guys is that
28:02 these are their
28:03 children they are their residents it is a 2,000 plus a person
28:10 event on two
28:12 campuses every school day and a 1,000 plus person event on the
28:17 southwest
28:18 middle school campus every day it’s a lot of people in an
28:20 enclosed space and
28:22 they’re their kids and their citizens their residents and people
28:25 who are
28:25 guests if they don’t live in Palm Bay but they work there they’re
28:28 their guests so I feel
28:29 very strongly about that thank you dr. Mandel for sharing that
28:32 the safe schools
28:33 allocation does not cover everything it doesn’t even cover all
28:36 our SROs much
28:37 less you know the Guardians and all the other things that we’re
28:40 required to do
28:41 like the the app rave up the rave app we have to have some kind
28:46 of a what’s a
28:47 panic button service that we’re provided and and then you know
28:52 of course other
28:52 things we can cover with capital like fencing and things but
28:54 there are
28:55 requirements under Martyr Stoneman Douglas Act that that money
28:57 is supposed
28:58 to pay for besides just SROs I the letter when I was pulling up
29:05 all the
29:06 reimbursement amounts if I what dr. Mandel showed you was a 52,000
29:10 in the
29:10 first year and it just noticed because the public can’t see it
29:14 we have
29:15 increased our flat fee reimbursement every year except for the
29:19 second year
29:19 that was the only year that the board did not give more money
29:23 each year so I
29:24 think that shows that we’re willing to negotiate that we’re
29:26 willing to do what
29:27 we can when we’ve gotten more funding from the state and even
29:30 when we haven’t
29:30 gotten more funding from the state we have we have been we have
29:33 been agreeable
29:34 I mean we honestly we’re kind of at a loss we don’t really we
29:37 have to have
29:38 them right we have to have them so we’re at a little bit of a
29:42 disadvantage when
29:43 we get those negotiations but we have made those negotiations
29:45 and we have
29:46 increased it every year but I wanted to go earlier because it’s
29:49 my memory and I
29:50 needed to go to someone who had a better memory so I called our
29:53 former CEO Dr.
29:55 Mullins was a CEO at the time he was also a principal down in in
29:59 Palm
29:59 Bay for at Southwest Middle School for years and I needed his
30:01 historic
30:02 knowledge of how much we were paying previous to Marjory Stoneman
30:05 Douglas so
30:06 he had a good memory and said yes when he was a principal at
30:09 Southwest which
30:10 was unlike the early 2000s even Southwest Middle School had an SRO
30:14 and
30:14 so did Heritage High School so did Bayside High School they have
30:18 had SROs
30:19 through the years the reimbursement rate previous to Marjory Stoneman
30:22 Douglas was
30:23 thirty three thousand dollars we paid thirty three thousand
30:27 dollars which was
30:27 a time at the time what he recalled was it was supposed to pay
30:31 for about half of
30:32 what their salary was supposed to pay for their salary through
30:35 the ten months
30:35 that we would have them and then the city paid for the rest so I
30:40 so when
30:41 Marjory Stoneman Douglas happened and like Dr. Wendell said
30:44 Melbourne and
30:45 Palm Bay are the biggest they had the most schools to cover they
30:48 said we can’t
30:48 do more than we are already doing I remember those conversations
30:52 so they
30:52 said we can only provide SROs to the three schools that were
30:56 already provided
30:58 them for and I’m not dealing with chart the charters can work
31:00 out their own
31:01 thing that’s their that’s not our contract but to the three
31:04 schools are
31:05 already providing and so really from the thirty three thousand
31:08 even in that first
31:09 contract they went from thirty three thousand to fifty two
31:11 thousand so and
31:13 then of course we’ve gone up every year so I just wanted to be
31:16 clear and I’m
31:16 gonna as if if the city of Palm Bay pulls out now they will be
31:22 doing less
31:22 than they have ever done at least for decades I’m extremely
31:30 disappointed I’m
31:32 extremely disappointed this has been very frustrating and I’ve
31:34 had serious
31:35 heart-to-heart conversations and and and and I will continue on
31:38 it to have those
31:39 conversations I just want to make sure that the right
31:41 information is out there
31:42 if they’re gonna make the decision needed have all the
31:45 information that the
31:46 city of Palm Bay has for decades supported the schools by
31:49 putting officer
31:50 in in schools on in their property under their jurisdiction and
31:54 with their
31:55 children and I know we’re all facing budget scary times and
32:01 especially you
32:02 know if who knows what’s going to happen with the property taxes
32:04 in the next
32:04 couple years and I can’t even imagine how scary that is for them
32:07 but this is
32:08 something they’ve always done we’ve continued to increase our
32:12 part and so I
32:13 just want to make sure that the language is clear because they’ve
32:15 now had two
32:16 meetings in the sunshine talking about it but I don’t think I
32:19 know for a fact
32:20 that the information that what they’re saying it’s not accurate
32:22 not because
32:22 they’re lying but because they don’t have the full picture so
32:24 hopefully
32:25 between the phone calls I’ve had with them and other people have
32:27 had with them
32:27 and doctor and Rondell thank you for sitting down with with them
32:30 a couple of
32:30 times hopefully they have full information especially after
32:33 today so
32:34 they can make the best decision but I I board my recommendation
32:39 is for us to
32:40 stay right there at 77,000 I think it’s fair we’ve increased it
32:43 we’re also
32:44 cutting in many areas we’re already pulling out of our general
32:46 operating
32:47 fund which is supposed to be mainly used for educating kids it’s
32:50 also to keep
32:51 them safe we’re doing that so that we can increase it it is very
32:55 likely next
32:56 year when we have to renegotiate the sheriff’s contract I mean I
32:59 don’t you
33:00 know I’m not gonna be here but it’s very likely he’s gonna come
33:01 back and ask you
33:02 for more which is fair right and we’ve always been open to
33:05 negotiate that
33:06 brings a gun when he does that yeah so I I think we need to just
33:11 hold the line in
33:12 and let it be their decision and then if we have to rely on the
33:16 sheriff I’m gonna
33:18 say this other thing if we have to rely on the sheriff to
33:20 provide sheriff
33:21 deputies to fill in those gaps and we decide not to use security
33:25 specialists
33:26 only to meet that legislative mandate to me that is all of the
33:32 county helping to
33:34 subsidize security for those schools and I’m just gonna leave it
33:40 at that for now
33:42 Thank You miss Campbell mr. Thomas I always hate speaking after
33:47 miss Campbell
33:47 because she always does such a good job of articulating
33:50 everything so you’ve
33:51 covered a lot of points I don’t I won’t rehash those I will tell
33:54 you guys that
33:55 you know my background I’m retired law enforcement there’s a
33:59 short time where I
34:00 was an SRO I ran the police athletic league for a number of
34:04 years and I
34:04 understand the value of having police officers having
34:09 relationships with with
34:10 students and with kids and I had a long conversation with
34:13 Sheriff Ivy and I can
34:14 tell you there’s nobody no law enforcement officer in the county
34:17 that
34:17 appreciates that those relationships more than than him as well
34:22 I think that
34:23 the city’s have a direct benefit and we can provide armed safety
34:27 officers at
34:28 every school and you know if that’s what we had to do that’s
34:31 what we’d have to do
34:32 we don’t have you know the financial means to provide you know
34:36 officer SROs
34:37 full officers funding SROs at every school but if we had to
34:41 provide armed
34:41 safety officers we would do what we have to do but that would
34:44 leave the city’s
34:46 without the opportunity to invest in their own city and there
34:50 these are I
34:51 think the one thing that gets missed in this whole conversation
34:54 is is that that
34:54 by the city’s investing and they’re putting their own police
34:57 officers in the
34:58 schools there are building a bridge between their schools their
35:02 kids and
35:03 their community and we can put a safety officer a sheriff’s
35:07 deputy in there but
35:08 that defeats a lot of the benefits of a police officer having
35:11 those
35:12 relationships and direct you know it from their own city so that’s
35:16 a huge
35:17 benefit that I want every city to take advantage of I think most
35:20 cities
35:20 appreciate that I appreciate where where Palm Bay is going as
35:24 far as trying to
35:25 you know pinch every penny certainly get that we are too but
35:29 there I think they
35:30 need to make sure that they recognize that the benefits that
35:33 they have by
35:33 having SROs in their schools and maybe even increase the number
35:36 of officers they
35:37 have that being said you know I don’t believe we have the
35:43 financial
35:44 flexibility to increase the contract I think that we need to
35:48 stand where we’re
35:49 at I think we need to let the sheriff’s contract be the standard
35:53 I think that he
35:54 does his best to make the most out of the money that we have and
35:57 the money
35:57 that we can provide them the one thing I do appreciate a
36:01 conversation with deputy
36:03 mayor Jaffe from Palm Bay and he made a comment that I think
36:07 that is I think
36:08 that’s something we could all jump on and that is he goes you
36:10 know my in where
36:11 I he’d really like to see all this go is that we all get
36:14 together and lobby the
36:15 state to to provide full funding for SROs I think that’s a great
36:20 idea I think
36:20 every sheriff’s association every school district and every city
36:24 should we should
36:25 all team together and ask the state to fully fund what our SROs
36:28 cost not a
36:29 safety specialist or you know safety officer but a fully you
36:32 know fully armed
36:34 SRO I think that would be much better than putting us in the
36:38 position or us in
36:39 the city’s in the position of having to negotiate so that’s
36:43 where I stand on
36:45 okay Jean not to repeat and repeat repeat but you know as we get
36:56 going by
36:57 the time it gets to you mr. chair you’re not gonna have anything
36:59 to say all right
37:01 yeah yeah wishful thinking there huh but absolutely great great
37:06 comments there
37:07 and John thank you for doing what you did it as an SRO I’ve had
37:10 the pleasure
37:11 to work with multiple SROs in my career and and to see them
37:16 establish that
37:17 relationship with the students is remarkable I mean it is you
37:21 can’t put a
37:22 cost on that and it’s such a benefit for the community to to
37:26 build those
37:27 relationships I mean because those are the students those are
37:30 the the citizens
37:31 that they see out on the streets you know in the evenings and
37:33 the weekends in
37:34 the summers and even as they graduate and get out of school
37:38 those
37:38 relationships continue so that the cost benefit for these cities
37:43 you can’t put a
37:44 dollar amount on that so I hope we keep those as well I I’m just
37:48 going to get
37:49 right to it I agree we should keep the sheriff’s contract as a
37:52 standard there’s
37:53 no reason for us to deviate from that and imagine that the domino
37:57 effect that
37:58 would happen if we if we tried to cherry-pick a certain school
38:02 or city and
38:04 I’m just not willing to do that at this point and John to your
38:07 point to petition
38:09 the state I think that’s great we should always be advocating
38:12 for you know more
38:13 funding for you know extremely important things and I think this
38:17 might be a good
38:18 time I think we have a few gentlemen out there that’s running
38:22 for governor and
38:23 those would be some very good questions and asks of them if they
38:27 were able to
38:28 become the next governor of Florida if they would champion that
38:32 so I think
38:32 that’s where we need to go so that’s all mr. chair thank you mr.
38:38 right all right
38:39 and I’m gonna take this moment right now to just go ahead and
38:41 thank Brevard
38:42 County Sheriff’s Office so they supply SROs to our schools they
38:45 34 out of 34
38:47 schools they’re covered and so when we know the sheriff’s are in
38:49 there we know
38:50 that they’re safe they have their firearm strapped across their
38:52 chest I
38:52 love their uniform I think other municipalities other sheriff’s
38:56 departments all around the country look at those and go that
38:58 really sends the
38:59 message that security is serious here in Brevard County so want
39:03 to thank them
39:04 want to thank Titusville as well so you know I represent
39:06 district one and so
39:07 Titusville nine out of nine they put an SRO and every single one
39:11 of Titusville
39:12 schools and they never waiver on that uncompromising a hundred
39:15 percent
39:15 coverage and so you know when I look at this and I understand
39:18 where they’re
39:18 coming from on this being a budget constraint driven
39:22 conversation but we
39:24 put our money where where we value it the most and when it comes
39:28 to the
39:28 security and the safety of our children in our schools that’s
39:31 not just the
39:32 sheriff’s responsibility that’s not just but it supplies
39:34 everybody that’s all
39:35 hands on deck and so that’s an investment and I’m saying hey we
39:39 100%
39:40 are behind the mission of ensuring that these schools are safe
39:43 and so this
39:44 conversation coming up over a municipality that provides three SROs
39:47 is
39:48 a little bit alarming to me they have three three out of what do
39:51 we have 14
39:52 traditional BPS schools so probably are they the smallest I mean
39:56 they maybe
39:57 largest I mean as far as the smallest percentage of coverage
40:00 that they provide
40:01 into the school they are one of the smaller ones and so I
40:04 understand where
40:05 the conversation is coming from but at the end of the day as you
40:07 said miss
40:08 Campbell these are their kids these are our kids these are the
40:10 entire
40:11 community’s kids and so we all have a responsibility there the
40:14 sheriff’s office
40:15 has been very gracious they they take on this contract at a
40:18 financial loss to
40:18 themselves every single year because they understand the value
40:21 of the service
40:22 that they’re providing to our community so I had conversations
40:24 with Sheriff IV
40:25 about this he’s always been the one to really lead the charge
40:28 when it comes to
40:28 these contracts and you know the conversation that we had was
40:31 very clear
40:32 his message was if Pompeii doesn’t want to cover those schools
40:36 there’s no way in
40:37 hell I’m gonna leave him unprotected so I will take them but
40:40 Pompeii is missing
40:41 out on a phenomenal opportunity as it’s been stated here so I’m
40:44 hoping that they
40:44 look at this a little different and reshape their their
40:47 mentality around it
40:48 and and come alongside us and I’m a hundred percent for
40:50 advocating and
40:51 lobbying you know the legislator to maybe give us some more
40:54 dollars towards
40:55 school security because obviously that’s the number one probably
40:57 making sure
40:57 children are safe in our schools so I’m right with you guys stay
41:00 where we’re at
41:00 let the sheriff be the the chief negotiator and really the
41:03 municipality
41:04 seemed to all but one really agree with that that mentality so I
41:07 I’d say we stay
41:08 where we’re at as well thank you so much I think you guys have
41:12 all stated a lot
41:12 of really good things I’m just gonna kind of re reaffirm some of
41:15 it and bring
41:16 some other facts to it the first thing is is that when we
41:19 started this security
41:21 special not before we had the security specialist with SROs and
41:25 our
41:25 relationship with many of the school did our cities was similar
41:30 they can whether
41:31 they covered them or they didn’t cover them and then we were
41:34 completely blind
41:35 sighted by majority Stoneman the amount of revenue that it was
41:38 costing the
41:38 amount of money that it took us to undertake that project and
41:41 the sheriff
41:41 was amazing like to say that we were going to bring in 30 to 35
41:46 specialists
41:47 find qualified qualified people inside of our county that could
41:50 go into our
41:51 schools and take it over train them and everything else was
41:54 beyond one of the
41:55 biggest accomplishments anybody’s ever had in our school
41:58 district and the fear
41:59 that it put into everybody that this was not something that was
42:02 less than 120
42:04 miles from up from here majority Stoneman Douglas says it’s it’s
42:07 not far
42:07 at all from here so it made it rattled home and all of a sudden
42:11 conversations
42:12 like what mr. Thomas was saying about the connection to the
42:14 community the
42:15 reason we need SROs inside the schools and all the great things
42:17 that they do
42:18 came up and when this kind of came to me and for full intents
42:23 and purposes I was
42:24 never even contacted I had to reach out to them and say hey what’s
42:27 going on
42:27 right so I did and mr. Johnson and I’ve been going back and
42:31 forth and stuff like
42:31 that but there’s a difference between our security specialists
42:37 jobs and what
42:38 the SROs jobs are and so many people may go on campus and may
42:42 know that the SRO
42:43 is there to bridge the gap to create the relationships to do
42:46 those things to
42:47 answer the police and law enforcement and everything else if you
42:51 take the time
42:53 to respond to a school and you look at when a school calls the
42:56 police officers
42:57 saying Palm Bay or anywhere that does not have an SRO and the
43:00 schools that do
43:01 the immediate response is incredible right but that’s a
43:05 different job than
43:06 the security specialist security specialist is just protecting
43:08 the
43:09 printer making sure that everything is safe there is there is
43:12 not a huge
43:13 connection to the to the schools not a huge connection to the
43:16 police pal leagues
43:18 and everything else so one of the things that I was looking at
43:22 was you know this
43:24 this is unfortunate because they’re bringing forward a
43:27 connection or some
43:28 numbers that I feel are not completely solid like I don’t think
43:33 that when we
43:33 look at it to bring us that every single SR or SRO that’s
43:36 working inside of our
43:38 schools is making the exact same amount and it’s the highest
43:41 amount that they
43:41 have I was looking for a better number and we have some
43:44 questions like over
43:45 some of the days that they actually work and stuff like that the
43:48 reason is is I
43:49 wanted to let you guys know when we first did this we looked at
43:52 how many
43:52 days does the actual SRO work inside of our schools compared to
43:57 their salary
43:57 that was the number where we started ramping up and a lot of
44:01 that had to do
44:02 with the conversations that yes they are not full-time here they
44:07 have road duty
44:08 many of them afterwards so what happens is is during thanksgivings
44:11 during
44:12 Christmases during days off inside of our schools for the whole
44:15 month of July
44:16 for partial months depending on if we have summer school they’re
44:19 off so I I
44:20 was trying to get that number I was working to try to find out
44:23 that number
44:24 but it varies based on school so I’m trying to get those numbers
44:27 at the
44:28 schools but when somebody says that we have to pay a hundred
44:31 percent of the
44:31 salary of an individual that’s not even there 100% of the time I
44:35 think there’s a
44:35 disconnect and I think like I think mr. Thomas said it I think
44:40 they’re looking
44:41 serious at each one of their deficient areas for cost right we
44:45 don’t fault them
44:46 for any of that and there’s a lot of things that we can do
44:49 collaboratively
44:50 with Palm Bay to reduce costs in other areas so I think in
44:54 general I support
44:56 miss Campbell and everybody else’s conversation that we actually
45:01 turn
45:01 around and say no we’re not gonna renegotiate the contract if
45:05 you want to
45:05 negotiate through the sheriff however you want to do that but we’re
45:08 not going
45:08 to go and do that I wanted you guys to look at this as a plan
45:12 right now we
45:13 already have we’re only required to have an armed security
45:16 specialist at each one
45:17 of our schools we already have one in Bayside Southwest heritage
45:22 is the only
45:23 one that doesn’t have one so technically to protect the schools
45:26 and to have the
45:27 right we only need one more security specialist to fill the spot
45:29 now that’s
45:30 not what we would want we would want SROs we would want all the
45:33 rest of them
45:33 to be inside there but just from a perspective of cost and
45:36 perspective of
45:37 it I checked in with mr. Klein he said absolutely we could find
45:41 the you know
45:42 we’re very thin right now but we could definitely find somebody
45:45 to be inside of
45:46 there so that’s the first thing the other thing is is I want to
45:49 try to
45:50 figure out I want to try to figure out the total days that each
45:54 one of them
45:54 works right I also want to find out their actual true salary is
45:58 the actual
45:59 true fringe and everything else and then I wanted to also find
46:02 out what these
46:03 charters are paying these SROs to because those contracts are a
46:06 little bit
46:06 different what are they actually paying and what’s going on
46:09 there and I you know
46:10 I kind of Odyssey Charter Elementary School is that on the same
46:15 campus as the
46:17 only you’re looking at the right column there’s only one charter
46:20 school that has
46:20 an SRO and that’s that yeah Odyssey and they it’s my
46:26 understanding that they
46:27 kind of use our contract as a piggyback okay so they they
46:31 reimburse right these
46:32 are piggyback but all the other charter schools they use a
46:34 security specialist
46:35 that are trained through our same program remember they stole a
46:39 couple of
46:39 our people but the reason I was saying that is is because I
46:42 wanted to be able
46:43 to reach out to them and say hey this is also going to affect
46:46 you if that’s the
46:47 case and I just I really think that we can it’s been something
46:53 that Suhan and I
46:53 talked about work with Palm Bay on collaborative things for
46:56 instance we’re
46:57 bringing in those clinics those clinics are going to be shared
47:00 sites possibly if
47:00 we decide to do that could save them inwards between one and two
47:03 million
47:04 dollars on their actual health care costs there’s a hundred
47:08 other ways we
47:08 can work together on community developments there’s many dollars
47:11 that
47:11 we both spend from their HUD housing for their low-income
47:15 students to what we put
47:16 in for our stem stuff like there’s there’s dollars everywhere
47:19 that we can
47:19 work together I would love the opportunity to work on a lot of
47:23 those
47:23 things but as of right now I am a hard no on renegotiating and I’m
47:28 definitely
47:28 not going to go and start even talking about this until we
47:32 actually get true
47:33 numbers and we actually find out the true the the individuals
47:37 that are in
47:38 there miss Campbell you you specifically stated have not been in
47:41 since this thing
47:42 came in I may be the only board member that was actually part of
47:45 the
47:45 conversation but we did it specifically based on how many days
47:48 they work we
47:49 don’t just pay a hundred percent of salary because that’s what
47:51 they you know
47:52 no they’re going back to the road and stuff like that there’s no
47:54 reason for us
47:55 to cover that cost so with that I say no and I but I will pull
47:59 these information
48:00 and I’ll get it back to you so that we can have a hard
48:02 understanding because
48:03 I’m sure that this will come back up in the future so that’s it
48:06 dr. Endell do
48:07 you have anything no I have clear direction from the board I do
48:10 want to
48:10 kind of finish on a positive note you know mr. Thomas talked
48:14 about it being an
48:14 investment yep having a school resource officer from the local
48:18 PD department or
48:20 the sheriff’s office on the campus developing those
48:22 relationships want to
48:23 remind everybody that we just celebrated Chris had a way the SRO
48:27 at Rockledge
48:28 he’s a Rockledge PD officer that’s on Rockledge high schools
48:31 campus every day
48:31 as the state employee of the year and so that shows what the
48:37 investment can turn
48:39 into and when we made that announcement at the school you know
48:44 the chief of the
48:45 Rockledge PD was there there were all kinds of other Rockledge
48:47 PD officers
48:48 that wanted to be there and were there there was even some EMTs
48:51 and fire rescue
48:52 people there because it’s a community investment in that school
48:57 and so that’s
48:59 what we want you know so that’s the goal and I would hope every
49:02 city wants to be
49:03 part of that that’s it
49:33 you