Dampening the county’s hopes to reduce the $1 million it contributes to the School Board to pay for sheriff’s deputies in every school–and more in other “legacy” contributions, as the county calls them–Flagler Schools Superintendent LaShakia Moore says she does not see how the community would accept a retreat from the combined commitment by the School Board and the County Commission.
“I’ve shared this with anybody that has asked me this question,” Moore said. “I think the community has demonstrated over a number of years their commitment and the importance of our schools being safe and having trained law enforcement officers on our campuses. And so I would be surprised or shocked for our community to go away from that desire to have that. So I took it as, we’re going to have a conversation.”
Moore addressed the county’s initiative in an interview following her meeting with County Administrator Heidi Petito. Petito had written Moore a two-page letter in mid-February that, contrary to subsequent attempts to walk it back, left no doubt that Petito was explicitly stating 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.” (See: “Flagler County Plans to End $1.4 Million Contribution for School Deputies, Administrator Tells Superintendent.”
That meant reducing or ending the county’s share of its 50-50 financial commitment to keeping Flagler County Sheriff’s deputies in each of the county’s nine traditional schools.
Moore specified that when she was referring to the community, she was also referring to the County Commission. “Don’t they represent the work and the desires of our community?” she asked. “So when I say our community, I think that our community impacts and the decisions that all of these groups and organizations that make our governmental officials–our our community impacts those decisions.”
Petito had been vexed by the disclosure of the letter she’d written Moore, the disclosure of which triggered an outcry against county intentions and a debate about what the meaning of Petito’s words were. Petito briefed the County Commission two weeks ago on her meeting with Moore, but she did so with no details: “We met with Superintendent Moore to begin discussions of those legacy expenditures. This was the beginning of what I believe to be several conversations,” Petito said. “I believe the meeting was very productive. I look forward to our continued dialogue with Miss Moore.”
Moore was more expansive. “Our conversation with Heidi was very brief and kind of pointed and it really was about–let’s come together, let’s look at the different things that the county supports and what are ways that we can continue to identify dollars that are available in order to meet those needs,” Moore said. “It wasn’t a conversation of: this is what we want to do, this is what we want to do it by, or when we want to do it. It was really about: okay, we have these things, are we maximizing all of the dollars that are available to us through the school or through the county in order to meet those needs?”
The meeting lasted “maybe an hour,” and was in person with just Petito and Moore in the room. Whether to save face after a major misstep by the county regarding what may be a settled issue, or to genuinely pursue alternatives, But both sides say they still intend to pursue various avenues as they rethink how the deputies are paid for. But options are very limited.
Would the school board consider raising taxes to pay for security? Some people have been asking that question, Moore said. “Right now it’s not something that we’re looking at,” Moore said. “But I think it’s also important that again, as we continue to have dialogue with the county and with all of our organizations that support us, that we’re looking at what all is out there and available, and how can we use those dollars in order to be most responsible fiscally.”
Most of the school district’s budget is out of the local school board’s hands. State legislators and the Department of Education’s funding formulas–some of them byzantine–set the school property tax rate and the monetary distribution among the state’s 67 counties, with increasing millions getting shifted to fund privately run charter schools and to subsidize private, parochial and home-school education through “vouchers.”
The state decides what Flagler County receives in what it calls “Safe Schools” funding. It’s out of that pot that Flagler County received its current-year funding of $1.17 million. The district was making a profit on its allocation, since its share of local costs for deputies was $1.05 million, but that profit vanished when the district added a resource deputy at its alternative school on the campus of Flagler Palm Coast High School. The state allocation and the local district’s spending are now aligned almost equally, with the county picking up the balance.
Local districts still have some discretionary tax authority. For example, the local district has a tax of $1.5 per $1,000 in taxable value to pay for capital needs. The district has also successfully and repeatedly convinced voters to approve a sales surtax, adding 0.5 cents to the local sales tax, which is now 7 percent. (The state tax is 6 percent. The county levies the other additional half-penny surtax.) In the last renewal, in 2022, the board expanded allowable spending from that revenue to security. But the board may not spend money on, say, the salaries of school resource deputies. It may spend money on capital expenses–guns, ammunition, cars, equipment.
It is not doing so at the moment. “We definitely will work to do that, to identify what pieces of it we could pay for it,” Moore said.
It also has a tax of 75-cent-per-$1,000 in taxable value for discretionary spending. Until 2013, that was a $1, or one-mil, tax. In 2013, however, the school board got greedy. A quarter of that tax was up for renewal by referendum. Instead of asking voters to renew the tax, the board pursued the renewal plus an increase of a quarter-mil. Then-School Board member Andy Dance had opposed that move, arguing to his colleagues that the board should stick with a renewal, not an increase.
But the Newtown school massacre, where 26 people, 20 of them children, were gunned down at the school, was fresh in people’s minds. Florida had not yet passed the 2018 law (after the Parkland massacre) that required all school districts to have an armed presence in each school. The local board wanted to expand its School Resource Deputy ranks to do just that. In that sense, it was ahead of its time. It was also trying to make up for the embarrassment of having a parent pay for extra security at Old Kings Elementary out of her own pocket.
So the district argued to voters that a tax increase would help fund additional deputies, placing at least one deputy in every school. The referendum failed, with just 43 percent in favor. That was seemingly conclusive evidence, at least 11 years ago, that the community did not want increased security at its schools, though the vote was conducted in a special election that drew just 21 percent of registered voters to the polls. And it was pre-Parkland.
The option of substituting armed school employees for sheriff’s deputies is a non-starter. Sheriff Rick Staly has repeatedly said that while he does not oppose the addition of armed employees (which the state calls “guardians”), he would be opposed to any plan that would substitute one armed presence for sheriff’s deputies.
Moore seconds him. While she does not oppose arming employees–it’s a policy decision in the hands of the School Board–she is uncomfortable at the idea. “I “I stand with where our sheriff says,” she said. “It’s one thing for us to have full force multipliers. But we need armed, trained law enforcement officers as part of that as well.” She had previously been a principal at Rymfire Elementary. Asked what she thought about armed employees on campus, she said that if law enforcement officers were not part of the approach, “that is not something that me as a person, as the principal Rymfire, that I would have thought was the best idea or thought in that moment.”
JimboXYZ says
It’s really sad that we have to put SRO’s on site. “EVERY” incident at any of the schools in Flagler county have been caused by the students themselves or their parents. I think those with children on schools should be taxed this to fund securing those K-12. Take the recent arrest of the guy that was showing children pornographic material in his home. Those were his kids & their friends ? The fights that break out on the campus ? All of them, students. Remember the woman & her kids that were beating up other children at the Indian Trails Sports Complex. That all started at FPCHS as a fight. And eventually that woman was arrested in a drug sting operation. In “EVERY” case, a parent or child has created a reason for there to be an officer on campus with access to an AR-15 rifle. Show me a school and I’ll show you a tax payer funded prison for juveniles with educational programs like they have implemented at the Green Roof Inn (GRI) as Sheriff Staly refers to the county jail with rehab programs. Since they know who the students are, who their parents are, those are the one’s that need to be paying for anything on campus to safeguard their own children. 13K students cost the rest of the community $ 1 million per year for SROs. That works out to be $ 76.93 per student. Even if parents have 3 school aged children, that between single/dual income(s), these parents or their families can’t afford less than $ 240/year to ensure their children aren’t causing problems on school premises that they are safe ? That the teachers & staff are safe to perform their jobs on a daily basis ? It’s gotten to the point where those that have create the educational security problems saddle the rest in the community with the burden of policing those children. Any costs beyond the educational process the students are receiving should be charged to those that are the relative cost driver.
https://www.flaglerschools.com/about-us/our-district
Raymond Darko says
In the end, the $$ comes out of the same till. The county just doesn’t want it out of their budget. So the schools & FCSO need to pay it. They can request the funding in their budgets. Or get grants the us gov has for these things. The schools can get this funding easily from other sources.
This whole thing is a nothing burger.