Florida Senate - 2021 SB 174
By Senator Cruz
18-00295-21 2021174__
1 A bill to be entitled
2 An act relating to school safety funding; amending s.
3 1011.62, F.S.; revising certain allocations to school
4 districts; specifying uses and distribution
5 requirements for certain safe schools allocation funds
6 for the 2021-2022 fiscal year; requiring each district
7 school superintendent to remit specified unused funds
8 from the 2020-2021 fiscal year to the Department of
9 Education by a specified date; authorizing the
10 department, upon request, to redistribute such funds
11 to certain school districts for a specified purpose;
12 providing an effective date.
13
14 Be It Enacted by the Legislature of the State of Florida:
15
16 Section 1. Subsection (15) of section 1011.62, Florida
17 Statutes, is amended to read:
18 1011.62 Funds for operation of schools.—If the annual
19 allocation from the Florida Education Finance Program to each
20 district for operation of schools is not determined in the
21 annual appropriations act or the substantive bill implementing
22 the annual appropriations act, it shall be determined as
23 follows:
24 (15) SAFE SCHOOLS ALLOCATION.—A safe schools allocation is
25 created to provide funding to assist school districts in their
26 compliance with ss. 1006.07-1006.12, with priority given to
27 safe-school officers pursuant to s. 1006.12. From the total
28 appropriated to the safe schools allocation, each school
29 district shall receive a minimum safe schools allocation as
30 specified in an amount provided in the General Appropriations
31 Act. Of the remaining balance of the safe schools allocation,
32 one-third shall be allocated to school districts based on the
33 most recent official Florida Crime Index provided by the
34 Department of Law Enforcement and two-thirds shall be allocated
35 based on each school district’s proportionate share of the
36 state’s total unweighted full-time equivalent student
37 enrollment. Each school district must report to the Department
38 of Education by October 15 that all public schools within the
39 school district have completed the school security risk
40 assessment using the Florida Safe Schools Assessment Tool
41 developed pursuant to s. 1006.1493. If a district school board
42 is required by s. 1006.12 to assign a school resource officer or
43 school safety officer to a charter school, the charter school’s
44 share of costs for such officer may not exceed the amount of
45 funds allocated to the charter school under this subsection. Any
46 funds appropriated to this allocation in the 2021-2022 fiscal
47 year for the school resource officer program established
48 pursuant to s. 1006.12 shall be used exclusively for employing
49 or contracting for additional school resource officers and shall
50 be distributed among all school districts, regardless of whether
51 the school district chooses to participate in the Coach Aaron
52 Feis Guardian Program. The funding shall be distributed to the
53 school districts based on each school district’s proportionate
54 share of the state’s total unweighted full-time equivalent
55 student enrollment.
56 Section 2. By August 1, 2021, each district school
57 superintendent shall remit to the Department of Education any
58 funds from the 2020-2021 fiscal year which were appropriated to
59 the district for participation in the Coach Aaron Feis Guardian
60 Program established pursuant to s. 30.15(1)(k), Florida
61 Statutes, and which remain unused as of July 1, 2021. Upon the
62 request of the sheriff of the county in which a school district
63 is located, the department may redistribute such funds to any
64 school district that has not previously participated in the
65 Coach Aaron Feis Guardian Program, for the purpose of
66 implementing school safety programs in accordance with s.
67 1006.07, Florida Statutes.
68 Section 3. This act shall take effect July 1, 2021.