After Parkland shooting, Scott proposes massive increase in school security money

Following the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Gov. Rick Scott proposed a $450 million school security plan.

The money would provide for increased building security, school resource officers in every public school and money for training of teachers and students. Scott also called for an additional $50 million for mental health initiatives and measures to reduce access to guns — including a requirement that most people be at least 21 to purchase a gun.

When Scott announced his plan in Tallahassee on Feb. 23, he said, "The goal of this plan of action is to make massive changes in protecting our schools, provide significantly more resources for mental health, and do everything we can to keep guns out of the hands of those dealing with mental problems or threatening harm to themselves or others."

PolitiFact has been tracking Scott's more modest campaign promise to increase school spending on security. In 2014, Scott promised to increase school security by $10 million to over $74 million, money divvied up among the state's 67 school districts. We gave him a Promise Broken in June 2017 after he signed a budget that included $64.5 million, or the same amount of money as the previous year.

Scott's promise referred to a longstanding program called the Safe Schools Allocation. The annual money is allocated to public school districts to spend on school resource officers and programs to correct behavior and prevent bullying.

Before the shooting in Parkland, the Legislature was split on funding for next school year. The House had recommended that the amount of money remain stagnant while the Senate recommended an extra $13.7 million. Scott had proposed a $10 million increase.

Scott's new school security proposal includes an increase in funding in the Safe Schools Allocation, although he didn't specify how much money was for that line item. (We asked a Scott spokeswoman how much of the $450 million will go toward the Safe Schools Allocation and she told us "we will keep you updated.")

The money could be used for school security measures such as metal detectors, bullet-proof glass, steel doors, and upgraded locks.

Other parts of Scott's proposal include:

• Mandatory school resource officers in every public school including at least one officer for every 1,000 students. Many schools currently don't have an officer or share one with other schools. (Marjory Stoneman Douglas had an officer, but he didn't enter the school while gunfire was under way.)

• Provide sheriffs' departments the authority to train additional school personnel or reserve law enforcement officers to protect students if requested by the local school board.

• Require mandatory active shooter training for faculty and students.

• Establish a new, anonymous K-12 "See Something, Say Something" statewide, dedicated hotline, website and mobile app.

• Establish funding to require access to dedicated mental health counselors at every school.

• Require each school to have a threat assessment team including a teacher, a local law enforcement officer, a human resource officer, a Department of Children and Families employee and a Department of Juvenile Justice employee, and the principal to meet monthly to review any potential threats.

• Require crisis intervention training for all school personnel.

Scott suggested that the state would pay for these projects by cutting in other areas, such as foregoing tax cuts or "some of the projects we all hold near and dear."

The Florida Education Association said in a statement that it supports Scott's proposal.

The state legislative session ends in two weeks on March 9. We will have to see if the Legislature will go along with Scott's funding proposal, but for now his announcement is enough to move our rating of his promise to In The Works.