Florida Senate - 2020 SB 304
By Senator Cruz
18-00284A-20 2020304__
1 A bill to be entitled
2 An act relating to school safety funding; amending s.
3 1011.62, F.S.; specifying distribution requirements
4 for certain safe schools allocation funds for the
5 2020-2021 fiscal year; requiring each district school
6 superintendent to remit specified unused funds from
7 the 2019-2020 fiscal year to the Department of
8 Education; authorizing the department, upon request,
9 to redistribute such funds to certain school districts
10 for a specified purpose; providing an effective date.
11
12 Be It Enacted by the Legislature of the State of Florida:
13
14 Section 1. Subsection (15) of section 1011.62, Florida
15 Statutes, is amended to read:
16 1011.62 Funds for operation of schools.—If the annual
17 allocation from the Florida Education Finance Program to each
18 district for operation of schools is not determined in the
19 annual appropriations act or the substantive bill implementing
20 the annual appropriations act, it shall be determined as
21 follows:
22 (15) SAFE SCHOOLS ALLOCATION.—A safe schools allocation is
23 created to provide funding to assist school districts in their
24 compliance with ss. 1006.07-1006.12, with priority given to
25 safe-school officers pursuant to s. 1006.12. From the total
26 appropriated to the safe schools allocation, each school
27 district shall receive a minimum safe schools allocation as
28 specified in an amount provided in the General Appropriations
29 Act. Of the remaining balance of the safe schools allocation,
30 one-third shall be allocated to school districts based on the
31 most recent official Florida Crime Index provided by the
32 Department of Law Enforcement and two-thirds shall be allocated
33 based on each school district’s proportionate share of the
34 state’s total unweighted full-time equivalent student
35 enrollment. Each school district must report to the Department
36 of Education by October 15 that all public schools within the
37 school district have completed the school security risk
38 assessment using the Florida Safe Schools Assessment Tool
39 developed pursuant to s. 1006.1493. If a district school board
40 is required by s. 1006.12 to assign a school resource officer or
41 school safety officer to a charter school, the charter school’s
42 share of costs for such officer may not exceed the amount of
43 funds allocated to the charter school under this subsection. Any
44 funds appropriated to this allocation in the 2020-2021 fiscal
45 year for the school resource officer program established
46 pursuant to s. 1006.12 shall be used exclusively for employing
47 or contracting for additional school resource officers and shall
48 be distributed among all school districts, regardless of whether
49 the school district chooses to participate in the Coach Aaron
50 Feis Guardian Program. The funding shall be distributed to the
51 school districts based on each school district’s proportionate
52 share of the state’s total unweighted full-time equivalent
53 student enrollment.
54 Section 2. Each district school superintendent shall remit
55 to the Department of Education any funds from the 2019-2020
56 fiscal year which were appropriated to the district for
57 participation in the Coach Aaron Feis Guardian Program
58 established pursuant to s. 30.15(1)(k), Florida Statutes, and
59 which remain unused as of July 1, 2020. Upon the request of the
60 sheriff of the county in which a school district is located, the
61 department may redistribute such funds to any school district
62 that has not previously participated in the Coach Aaron Feis
63 Guardian Program for the purpose of implementing school safety
64 programs in accordance with s. 1006.07, Florida Statutes.
65 Section 3. This act shall take effect July 1, 2020.