Whichever way you look at it, the Flagler County Commission’s and its administrator’s letter to the school district calling for a plan to defund the county’s portion of money for school deputies was clumsy, terribly timed, and an unnecessary invitation to political grandstanding in an election year.
Headlines did not make this issue go “sideways,” as Commission Chairman Andy Dance put it. The explicit wording of Administrator Heidi Petito to Superintendent LaShakia Moore did. She was following up on commission direction in December to reconsider “legacy” funding to the school district–a terribly tendentious term that falsely suggests outdated commitments. There’s nothing outdated about funding school cops.
Petito didn’t just follow up. For all her many qualities, that Craig Coffey-like zeal to get things done among them (she rose under his 11-year leadership), she overstepped, overleaped. She left no doubt that the county had already made “an important decision regarding our ongoing financial commitments to the school district.” It had not. But that’s what Petito wrote in her first line.
She left no doubt about what she was referring to, specifying the $1.4 million the county contributes to the district, including the more than $1 million for school deputies. And she left no doubt that “it is necessary for us to establish a transition plan to gradually transfer the financial responsibility for these legacy expenditures to the school district.”
There was no mention of a timeline. Since Petito said the decision was already made, the timeline was implied: we need to get this done. There were no qualifiers. There was no assurance that the county would do all it could to ensure that replacement money was in place first, other than “exploring any potential solutions or strategies that may help ease the transition.” The focus again was on that word: transition, meaning the end of county funding. There certainly was nothing about this being just a discussion item, a conversation opener, an issue to discuss and debate, as Dance and a school board member later tried to paint it.
There’s no way around it: Petito was saying in black and white that the county intends to defund its share of school deputies, period. (The word defund now has regrettable ideological connotations. In this case, it is the precise word.)
The backlash has been immediate and bitter, justifiably so. Dance is baffled. So are many of us–about Dance’s misjudgment. He is just about the most accomplished, experienced and effective elected official in Flagler County today. (David Alfin doesn’t have the breadth of his experience and Colleen Conklin’s minority status marginalizes her effectiveness.) He’s on a commission losing two long-serving moderates (Donald O’Brien and Dave Sullivan). The county can’t afford to lose him, too. Yet here he is, opening a gaping, unnecessary vulnerability to his re-election. Of course politicians shouldn’t pander or worry about timing. But there are times when losing sight of the larger picture is risky.
This is one of those times, and Dance lost sight, both about the election and the merits of his “legacy” proposal.
Constituents may have taken the proposal more seriously had it not been pitched in the context of a County Commission obsessed with lowering its tax rate. So the defunding is not really for lack of money, but to give property owners yet another break–even though homesteaded property owners have been on easy street for a decade and a half.
Example: Dance’s property and mine are almost identically valued and have had similar appreciation histories. In 2010, he paid $2,275 in combined property taxes, $659 to the county’s general fund. I paid $2,193 and $605. Our bill this year? Dance is paying a combined $2,107, with $882 to the general fund, I’m paying $2,156, of which $865 for the general fund.
Our taxes have gone down in 13 years. In inflation-adjusted numbers, they’ve gone down even more–34 percent. (If our taxes had just kept up with inflation, he would have been paying $3,238, I’d have been paying $3,121.) Even our county taxes are lower today than in 2010 when adjusted for inflation.
That’s what being homesteaded is all about: Dance and I are not paying our fair share. Our taxes are being subsidized by the non-homesteaded–by renters, by businesses, by new homeowners. Yet the County Commission wants to cut the tax rate and end its “legacy” funding (and the state wants to give the homesteaded an additional exemption). Indefensible.
In an hour-long conversation with Dance, he made it very clear that he has no intention of pulling the county’s commitment to school deputies. “I do not want to impact any of the progress I’ve made as a school board member that would reduce services,” he said. (He served a dozen years on the school board before his election to the commission.) “We did not say anything about reducing services. We did not say anything about a timeline.”
Dance insisted that all he was doing, all that the county is doing, is opening a discussion. “We do not want a level of service drop. I worked too hard to get there.” He does not believe there are sacred cows, and he’s right. The whole intention, he said, is to find a different way to pay for the current level of service. If there isn’t one, then things stay as they are. In his own words: “I am not disassembling what we worked on. We will go back to this formula if we have to go back to this.”
That’s reassuring. But that’s not what Petito’s letter said, and it’s not what Dance or his colleagues said at the commission, even when they had a chance to clarify their approach last Monday. Had any of this been said, had Petito reflected it in her letter, none of this would be an issue. So there’s a considerable amount of walking back taking place.
That said, and putting aside the county’s indefensible lurch for cutting the tax rate while talking “transitions,” there’s also merit to Dance’s approach, and some history behind it: the county, he told me, has been attempting to have this conversation with the district since before Moore took over. The district has ignored the requests. The county got exasperated. Petito’s letter was one result. So she, too, can’t bear all the blame: the school district is not being straight with the county, particularly when the district is far from innocent.
Here’s the dirty secret of school district Safe Schools money. (Safe Schools is what the state calls its annual allocation for security in schools.) In 2020-21, the last complete year for which figures were readily available (getting timely information from the school district these days is impossible), the district actually made a profit on its Safe Schools allocation. The state appropriated $882,186 to Flagler. The district’s contract with the sheriff appropriated $748,162, leaving a net profit to the district of $134,024. (Don’t take my word for it: here’s the state allocation, here’s the district’s contract.) Palm Coast annually picks up the cost of one of the 14 deputies in schools.
Even when you include the $103,000 the district spent on crossing guards, it still came out ahead. In other words, the district’s general fund budget was entirely spared by any money spent on deputies. You can’t say the same about the county, whose every dollar contributed to school deputies comes out of the general fund.
The local district does not set its property tax rate. The Legislature does. So if we’re going to take the county to task for its tax-cutting obsession, the state has outdone counties manyfold in that regard. The state has reduced the school tax by more than half since 1996, with cuts every year for the past 10 years. If the state wanted to fund security, it could.
But the state is not interested in responsibly paying for school security. It’s not even paying a bare minimum. For Flagler, it’s paying half the bill. None of that is going to change, so looking to the state for a better Safe Schools formula is idle talk.
Nothing in state law requires districts to hire professional law enforcement. To the state, anybody with a uniform and a gun will do. That means cheap, barely trained, poorly paid warm bodies called “security guards.” That means armed school employees who think being called “guardians” and having a gun will protect students, when it will more likely endanger them.
If we must have an armed presence, there is no substitute for professional law enforcement. In Flagler, there is no substitute for sheriff’s deputies from a department that prizes community engagement and de-escalation. This “transition” proposal will only open the door, one way or another, for our pathologically clueless school board once again to push for arming staffers. That would be fueling stupidity with folly.
Finally, while it’s true that state and federal funding control most of the local school district’s budget, it’s not true that the school board doesn’t have taxing authority. It can levy a local property surtax, just as it levies an extra half-penny sales surtax.
Voters have repeatedly approved the sales surtax. They used to routinely approve the property surtax. In 2013, the school board “got greedy,” in Dance’s apt words. It sought to double that property surtax, going from a quarter mil to half a mil, ironically on the pretext that, after the Sandy Hook massacre, the district needed more money for school deputies. Voters rejected the tax.
So while voters may claim to love their school deputies, they, too, aren’t eager to pay for them. That was 10 years ago. Maybe if the district tried again in this post-Parkland era it would get a different result, though I doubt it: this school board has obliterated voters’ trust beyond repair, so any referendum will have to wait until a majority with at least some intelligence and accountability is seated.
Meanwhile Petito and Moore will talk. They’re scheduled to meet next Wednesday, though that meeting is now moot. They’ve been outflanked by a reality they do not control. They’ll go through the motions, they’ll issue the obligatory sap about terrific cooperation and ongoing dialogue. Their bosses will parrot it all. But whatever they say, deputies aren’t going anywhere, nor is the county’s funding, because if there’s ever been a third rail in local government, Andy Dance and Heidi Petito just got zapped.
Pierre Tristam is the editor of FlaglerLive. A version of this piece airs on WNZF.
Michael J Cocchiola says
The Board of County Commissioners seems set on reevaluating the county’s share of the cost of school resource officers (SROs). So, let me ask… if the county won’t help fund the SROs, and the school budget can’t handle the full cost, what’s the answer? Is the fallback position going be to put Glocks in the hands of ill-trained, frightened and out-gunned school employees to provide security? Imagine putting our school security into the hands of the lowest cost and least capable alternative. Does any rational citizen think this is the right answer?
I do not understand how the BOCC separates the schools from everything else in the budget and seems to consider school system security as “unsustainable”. School security is a “must have”. It should be of the highest priority. And, seems like it’s not in the county’s strategic plan. Who put together this purported strategic plan? Did they just conveniently forget about the county’s 12,000 students and hundreds of teachers, administrators, support staff, and volunteers?
FCSO should bear the full burden for school security. SROs are sheriff’s deputies. If they are reassigned back to regular FCSO duty, the sheriff must pay their full cost anyway. So, just leave them in the schools where they belong. Either absorb the full cost, request supplemental funding or cut other lesser priorities. There is always the possibility of tapping into city budgets on a proportional basis or, as a last resort, perhaps a supplemental school tax.
It’s all about priorities.
Smart man! says
FINALLY A SMART COMMENT! Open your eyes, people! This is all about the sheriff not wanting to pay what he should be paying. Look at the hefty budget he has. Yet still the county pays for so many his “extras” on top of his budget. Then he throws out these propaganda lines about “defunding the police” to get all of you distracted. Pay attention to what the county is doing, it looks like they are trying to separate the FCSO so they can start paying their own stuff! As they should!
There is no reason why sheriff Staley needs another military grade hummer to barge into a project home in Bunnell for $200 worth of drugs! And then he plays the victim like the county is bullying him every year. He has an excess of thousands of dollars of budget that he frivolously spends ANNUALLY!
Pay attention! Everybody loves the police. And he uses that to push his personal agenda.
Pay for the SRD’s STALEY!
Duane says
Heidi, Heidi, Heidi?
Ed P says
Not to loose sight of the issue but property taxes in Marineland Acres on a vacant lot are more then Dance or Tristam pay annually. And to all the people who think those living in the Hammock on the island don’t pay their “fair share”, many annual tax bill exceed $12,000 and some reach $25,000.
As a final note, every homeowner in Marineland Acres was assessed $10,000 for the storm system and paving that was just completed. (Being paid over 20 years )
So Pierre is spot when he says long time homesteaders are not paying their fair share.
Villein says
Commissioner Dance can say and do stupid things because the voters love him – he’s one of the good guys keeping taxes low. And that’s all republican primary voters will care about and the general election will be a foregone conclusion. R for the win!
There are many problems here. Serious problems. But if you’re on cruise control for the election, if you vote at all, the results will be no different.
The democrats fielded a reasonable candidate for Andys seat last election. Maybe we can get another option again and put someone in office that doesn’t suck quite so much.
TR says
If the school board doesn’t want to help pay for the safety of the kids, then I hope that nothing goes wrong. But if it does I hope the school board gets sued for millions for being stupid. If they take away the SRO’s then maybe they can put metal detectors in at ALL the entrances of the schools. Hell, I’m going to retire soon, maybe they will let me stand at one of the schools entrances to protect the kids.
The three stooges on the school board need to leave and go live on an island. IMO
JimboXYZ says
“That’s what being homesteaded is all about: Dance and I are not paying our fair share. Our taxes are being subsidized by the non-homesteaded–by renters, by businesses, by new homeowners. Yet the County Commission wants to cut the tax rate and end its “legacy” funding (and the state wants to give the homesteaded an additional exemption). Indefensible.”
The homestead exemption is something that you & every other homeowner applied for. Anytime you want to terminate it, they send you a card once a year to indicate changes to your status. That’s if you are having trouble with sleeping at night. There are the costs of homeownership that are unseen. Renters, they don’t like their situation, they just move to the next location to get better appliances, a new roof or HVAC system. Then there’s homeowner’s insurance, that is inflated. Landlord’s in 2020, they couldn’t evict for non-payment of rent. How long do you think that would take for a bank to foreclose on a homeowner ?
But that’s not what is the crisis of the article. If one has school aged children, the burden of SRO’s needs to fall on those parents. Their children, right ? Residential, it’s on homeowner’s to have security in place to keep vandalism down on their property. A lot of the crime seems to come from the children in the neighborhoods, when it isn’t the parents of those children. Recall the shooting of the toddler, the whole family was involved in a cover up, parents, their son, that was an accidental gun discharge for that. So if the SRO is there for school security. The rest of us pay for the schools to educate. Criminal children need not be there for that motive.
JD says
That was like Billy Madison’s speech on the Industrial Revolution.
Kirby says
Chairman Dance and Mrs. Petito are trying to do the right thing for the county as a whole. That is their jobs, there are items being pushed down from the state that will have a negative effect on the citizens of Flagler. (i.e.: 25k more for Homestead Exemption). Which equals lower taxable income for the county as a whole, Fire Department, Libraries, Parks, General Road maintenance, Sherriff, etc. They are trying to find ways to mitigate any future financial problems. Do they want to get rid of SRO’s at the schools? OFCOURSE NOT is the answer. The county is the one who has been paying for it for years!! They are looking for the school board system to provide services that the county has been paying for, to assure protection for the kids of Flagler County. Would you pay your adult son or daughters mortgage payment for 5-10 years when they are profiting from it, and you are having to struggle to make ends meet? OFCOURSE NOT. The county stepped up to provide this service for ALL the kids in Flagler. It is time for others to accept a little responsibility and follow in the footsteps of the County Commission and leaders and continue to do the right thing. I am sure, if the school board will meet with them, Chairman Dance and Mrs. Petito will come to an agreement.
BLINDSPOTTING says
Kirby: Your Monday morning quarter back answer is laughable to say the least!
But nice try anyway People need to STOP making excuses for poor decisions,
which is why the county and city are in a big mess and those who make those
decisions need to be held accountable, also Pennington did not even know
of this letter so how was a decision fairly made, did you even bother to read
the previous articles: flaglerlive.com/county-plans-to-end-srd
but of course it’s easier for Petito and Dance to CIRCLE BACK after all
the backlash as their egos are too enormous to admit they misspoke or made
a mistake , so that’s what they do is push and stronghold the school board.
Not a good picture for them they both need to go. People are fed up with their
antics.
Sure says
Maybe they should have thought about that before they funded a $17 million dollar library.
Make Staley pay! says
Exactly this!!! Sheriff Staley…pay for your deputies! Put your money where your mouth is. You have the largest budget, you got it!
Getting it done says
Time for this county to wake up !
Petito, and her band of cronies need to be let go before they do anymore damage.
What an embarrassment.
BLINDSPOTTING says
Kirby: Your Monday morning quarter back answer is laughable to say the least!
But nice try anyway People need to STOP making excuses for poor decisions,
which is why the county and city are in a big mess and those who make those
decisions need to be held accountable, also Pennington did not even know
of this letter so how was a decision fairly made, did you even bother to read
the previous articles: flaglerlive.com/county-plans-to-end-srd
but of course it’s easier for Petito and Dance to CIRCLE BACK after all
the backlash as their egos are too enormous to admit they misspoke or made
a mistake , so that’s what they do is push and stronghold the school board.
Not a good picture for them they both need to go. People are fed up with their
antics.
palmcoaster says
Kirby the residents of Palm Coast in our Ad Valorem Taxes give 42% to the county and Palm Coast only gets 24% which amounts to gouging us as the city provides to us the biggest services needed day in and out and on top we pay about 10 millions additional to the sheriff for PC services. This is why affords this county to go and waste 2.5 millions in a round about to benefit development special interest and plans for millionaire libraries when we already have 3 on an age of Kinder books.. You bet that if county cuts its obligation 1.4 millions to the school those incumbents in their seats now will be booted for sure at the ballot box. Anyway they are not good allowing the nuisance world wide pilot schools to do touch and goes over neighbors homes and noise and lead pollution all over Palm Coast. These abuses have to stop. Enough damage the county did to Palm Coast right after ITT left and that is Palm Coast incorporated as the squeeze was worst then. And yes better Petito and Dance back off their ridiculous plan as they do not have those many fans among Palmcoasters. Can’t wait for 2024 to arrive to get whoever we need on the FCBOCC to vote with LeAnne Pennington for all county and it cities residents.
Palmcoastmom says
Flagler county (specifically Palm Coast) is no longer a retirement community and the city officials need to realize that fact and stop trying to defund this vital service and equally stop trying to pretend they are not when their hand was clearly caught in the cookie jar. Doing this “investigation” risks their own seat/reelection, attracting more new citizens and most importantly innocent lives of children. Parent voters won’t stand for it as they should not. There is much government to waste for sure but this is not one of those places, look elsewhere.
Flagler County Tax Payer says
You are correct about the safe schools allocation, I also did my research when this was all coming to light. However Pierre, I have inquired and asked…”what if a deputy is absent” Well guess what my answer was, the FCSO ensures that every school has a deputy on campus. The school district may get the supervisor sergeant to fill in that absent, which I as a taxpayer am ok with paying for in the contract, as long as he/she is covering schools. Well what if he/she is covering a school and there is another absent or training. Well through my research Chief Strobridge aligns the $$ figure to deputies, the school district is not paying for an hourly rate service, so now the FCSO is double dipping, because they are already getting paid for the deputy who is absent, and now the school district has to pay an overtime detail to make sure the deputy is on campus, and all of this money (I am assuming) comes out of the Safe Schools allocation. Well… what about this “floater” that the Sheriff talked about back in 2018 in the BTMS library, oh yeah he used so the school district has to pay for a Commander position, and I am sure if you were to inquire how many times has the Commander “cover” and absence, my bet would be zero. For someone who writes and reviews contracts for a living, this one surely needs to get blown up. The school district should put their foot down and have their new counsel work with their counsel on building a new contract. FCSO knows what the $$ amount will be in the Safe Schools Allocation, and that contract is usually right on the exact $$ every year.
Thomas Hutson says
DOA: Clumsy
Well, Pierre, you got what you wanted “HEADLINES”! You of all people should have known the intent of the County Manager Petito was too open dialog with Flagler County School Superintendent Moore over future funding for the SRD (School Resource Deputy) program. Instead of just reporting the “NEWS” you made sure the “SCARE” tactic would take hold. It did as you encouraged, it has parents and voters crying for the head of the County Manager, who by the way is not normally one of the people I would agree with, however, in this case Petito is correct, she was just doing her job. All one has to do is watch the 18th Commission meeting to see the Commission talk about the “Legacy” funding in the upcoming new budget. It is hard to believe some of the Commissioners waffle and run for cover under the tried and true “I don’t remember a Consensus” on this? All the County Manager stated was the total cost of the Legacy funding across the county $1.4 million and she was going to talk to Moore about this funding and the SRD program. Nothing was said about cutting SRDs, nothing was said about cutting funds at once. It was evident from reading the letter it was for a dialog between the County and School about future funding.
Too bad with your help, which you helped create, the County is the “BAD” apple in this crisis, Palm Coast residents thank you for that. You knew the facts yet run the Sheriff’s self-serving reprint, then picked out a very happy SRD picture in the classroom. Well for all of those head hunters, there is a funding problem, it is not going away. The only real outcome that was never in question is the SRDs, they will be there, no one wants to cut or remove them. Paying for them is another question that will have to be addressed, scare tactic and all.
So…ooo, Pierre keeps up the good work! YES SIR, old Andy Dance and Heidi Petito just got ZAPPED”
My question to you is WHY do you not go after What’s his name the Wanta-Be President, Governor, and our local Head Minion Speaker of the House Paul Renner and the rest of the Minions that bend over to kiss the ring in Tallahassee. They can take some of the wasted millions being spent from the Wanta-Be’s State Army and fund this unfunded mandated school requirement. Is the $10 million-dollar training facility needed more than SRDs?
Pierre Tristam says
Truculent Thomas Hutson, who has a tendency to make stuff up, is entitled to his opinions. Thankfully he’s not entitled to his own facts–alternative facts–contradicted by the very evidence he points to. As a candidate for the County Commission, I would hope that Hutson would get a bit more serious about checking his evidence and, hopefully, making it match his reasoning. A little camomille tea might help, too.
Skibum says
I think we are seeing more and more of politicians who toss risky proposals into the air just to see which way the political winds are blowing before they actually jump on board or go whole-heartedly against supporting something that would have caused immediate backlash. This issue just might have been one of those. But I’m still of the belief that we should not believe anything Dance now says and only half of what we actually see him do until we know for sure that he really DOES continue to support keeping the school resource deputies in Flagler County schools where they belong.
Celia Pugliese says
Like I to told in my 3 minutes to the School Board Members in the 2/22 meet at 6 PM, ” I will not vote for any commissioner or running candidate in support of doing away with the funding for the SRO in the schools”. So be it!
Concerned tax payer says
What confuses me is they pushed for school deputies after parkland so they knew what they were getting into then adding another deputy this year however the deputy for virtual school does not protect the campus on Fridays when my kid and other kids goto campus for follow up and meetings with the staff . My kid feels like they should be protected while there it makes no sense the money we are spending and my kid is left unprotected along with 40 other kids on Fridays !!!! But nobody is talking about that waste of money !!!
Superintendent Moore !!!!!! What the heck is going on !