The Broward County School Board unanimously rejected a plan Tuesday for the district to begin building out its own full-scale police force as soon as next month.
Superintendent Peter Licata developed the proposal at the direction of the board, but the plan drew intense criticism from elected officials across the county and some school safety officers.
“This is not the right time. This is taking away from the focus of this board on right-sizing the district, on becoming an A [rated] school district and also completing our SMART Bond program,” said Board Chair Lori Alhadeff at a special school board meeting on Tuesday.
About 40 members of the public, including city commissioners from Parkland, Weston and Coconut Creek, spoke at Tuesday’s meeting — all of them opposed to the proposal.
Safety has become one of the defining issues in Broward schools, particularly since the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
That tension was hanging over Tuesday's debate, with some members of the public questioning whether the school district can be trusted to police itself, pointing to the district's history of dysfunction and mismanagement.
"It's important you guys keep your eye on the ball and stay focused to what your true intention is supposed to be. And that is education — educating our children," said Parkland Mayor Rich Walker.
"There's a lot of roofs that need to be fixed. There's mold in schools. There's a lot of work that needs to be done on a district level before we start trying to entertain another layer of bureaucracy."
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Currently, Broward County Public Schools relies on its own armed guardians as well as 200 officers contracted through the Broward Sheriff’s Office and municipalities like Coral Springs and Fort Lauderdale to ensure there’s a school safety officer staffing every school, as required by state law.
BCPS also has a small internal police force called the Special Investigative Unit, which largely focuses on employee investigations, many of which are not criminal in nature. After the proposal failed, Licata said he plans to repurpose those officers to focus more on security.
Under the proposal that was voted down this week, the district would have phased out those contracts with local agencies and transitioned into building out its own full-scale police force over the next four years.
The idea of BCPS taking over the job of policing in the district has been discussed on and off for years — and in recent months, multiple school board members have expressed interest in exploring the approach.
The neighboring Miami-Dade County Public Schools and the School District of Palm Beach County — where Licata was a longtime administrator — both have their own police forces, with Miami-Dade Schools Police boasting it’s the nation’s largest school-based police department.
But on Tuesday, board members and other local officials and advocates voiced concerns about BCPS’ ability to hire, train and manage its own police force at a time when the district is facing significant budgetary challenges due to declining enrollment numbers.
“I still believe us having our own [police force] makes sense. However, now that I understand at least a picture of this financially, this doesn’t make sense to me,” said Board Member Torey Alston.
Alston questioned the superintendent’s accounting on estimating the total cost of building out a full-scale police department complete with its own uniforms, service weapons, patrol cars, offices and organizational staff.
According to estimates compiled by staff and presented at a meeting in March, the total cost to stand-up a BCPS police department would add up to $66 million. That includes:
- $35.6 million to hire 336 law enforcement officers and 53 support staff
- $18.5 million to purchase new vehicles
- $6.9 million in operating costs
- $5 million in non-recurring infrastructure costs
But in a presentation developed for Tuesday’s meeting, staff estimates didn’t include the cost of vehicles, infrastructure or operating expenses, instead listing the total cost at $37.3 million for hiring 369 law enforcement officers and 8 other non-law enforcement positions.
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