Lost in the competing Senate and House debates over teacher pay raises and Medicaid expansion is the fate of millions of dollars in homeland security grant money -- with some warning that if the Senate budget prevails, Florida's very domestic security will be compromised.
In dispute is more than $10.3 million, a federal grant annually awarded to Florida to help the state respond to natural and man-made emergencies which implicate homeland security. The Senate budget breaks several years of precedent by ignoring the recommendations of Florida's Domestic Security Oversight Council (DSOC), redirecting those funds from key law enforcement programs to the Department of Education for site hardening and mass communications.
Sources tell Sunshine State News the Senate's decision to refunnel these dollars is motivated by scares arising from the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. The House budget follows the DSOC recommendations, while appropriating some $500,000 to address security issues in state schools.
This [DSOC] process is a well-established process that allows all of the key players of the state to get together, prioritize how our resources are utilized, and plan going forward, Bryan Koon, director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management (DEM) and vice chairman of the DSOC, tells SSN. If you ignore that process, as this [Senate] budget recommends, now you have basically subverted what has been an excellent mechanism to help make sure Florida is well-positioned for the next natural or man-made disaster.
The DSOC brings together representatives from state law enforcement, emergency management, fire, search and rescue, campus security, the Florida Department of Agriculture, Florida's Department of Financial Services, the attorney general's office, the governor's office, and the Florida Department of Education.
Among the programs put in jeopardy by the Senate budget are
$1.4 million for interoperable communications between multijurisdictional agencies, including fire, police and other first responders;
$840,000 for maintenance of expensive high-tech equipment, and training funds for HazMat personnel who deal with hazardous materials;
$3 million for data analysis and intelligence, and the training of technicians to help law enforcement identify threats and suspects and find missing persons;
more than $2 million to pay for training, equipment, and personnel to accomplish the mission of SWAT teams, K-9, explosive ordinance disposal (EOD), and other special units.
Koon warns the cuts could be disastrous.
As we saw last week in Boston, it takes a lot of different entities working together to effect the appropriate response after a natural or man-made disaster, he insists. That's going to be the same going forward. If you move all of the funding into one bucket, you're lessening the likelihood of success.
He also explains Florida's needs are such, and the appropriations from the feds so little, that the funding recommended by the DSOC is needed just for the state to keep as up to par as it is.
We're not buying new capabilities, we are paying for the maintenance of capabilities that we have acquired and built up over the last 10 years, he explains. If you defund those, you risk not only not gaining ground on our capabilities, but moving backward.
One prominent Republican strategist, speaking to SSN on deep background, says the Senate budget is just so much political play in response to national hysteria.
This is the worst kind of political game, and our Republican leaders shouldn't be engaging in anything that puts a feel-good newspaper headline over the lives of our law enforcement officers and the safety of the public, the strategist opines. If we start spending tax dollars based on headlines, then this year it'll be schools and next year it'll be sporting events, and we'll be stuck reacting to the latest crisis instead of having a flexible, rapid response to things that are impossible to predict.
Steve Casey, executive director of the Florida Sheriffs Association, declined to comment on the specifics of either legislative chamber's budget.
Sheriffs believe that safe schools, as well as other domestic security initiatives approved by the Domestic Security Oversight Council, should be adequately funded by both the Senate and House, he told SSN.
Neither Sen. Joe Negron, R-Palm City, nor Sen. Lizbeth Benacquisto, R-Fort Myers, chairman and vice chairwoman respectively of the Senate Appropriations Committee, returned comment before this story went to press.
Reach Eric Giunta at egiunta@sunshinestatenews.com or at (954) 235-9116.
