Gov. Rick Scott is proposing millions of dollars for hundreds of officers and deputies, and making dozens of promises about gun restrictions and mental health resources.
While these safety measure proposals are coming up now, some are calling out Scott for not making changes before the Parkland shooting.
With stops in Miami, Jacksonville and Tampa, Scott has been crisscrossing the state to tout his $500 million proposal to keep schools safe.
The effort includes:
- Requiring anyone in the state wanting to purchase a firearm to be 21 years of age or older
- Putting law enforcement officers in every public school
- Putting a "threat-assessment team" at every school
- Hiring more mental health counselors and providing more mental health resources
- A ban on the purchasing and selling of bump stocks
- Creating an anonymous "see something, say something" statewide hotline
- Preventing people struggling with a mental illness who are threatening themselves or others from acquiring a gun
"There's nothing more important than to do all we can to make sure an evil act like this never ever happens again in this state," Scott said. "We have to get this done. We have the resources to do it."
Time is running out for legislators to make any of these changes official. March 9 marks the last day of the regular session for the Florida Legislature.
But a former state representative says the governor's push to add funding for school resource officers is not a new idea, but one that was proposed to the governor five years ago when it received a much different response.
In a letter dated Dec. 21, 2012—exactly one week after 20 children were shot and killed at Sandy Hook Elementary—Mike Fasano, who was a Republican state representative at the time, asked Scott to consider an idea.
Fasano, who is now the Pasco County tax collector, asked Scott to consider including in his budget proposal a plan to set aside funding for added school resource officers for every elementary school in the state.
"For whatever reason we never got a response," Fasano told 10News. :However, five years later, now we see the governor is making it sound like it's a new idea—his idea—when there were other calls for doing it five years ago."
Since then, there have been more shootings in Florida—the Pulse nightclub shooting in 2016 and the Fort Lauderdale airport shooting in 2017—that have prompted more debate about gun control, but not much action.
Following the airport shooting, Scott remarked during a press conference on Jan. 6, 2017, "It's not a time to be political."
Fasano says it begs the question: Why now?
"He's trying to make certain this doesn't happen again and I'm very pleased about that, of course," Fasano said. "But I want everyone to understand that sometimes people do things not based on what has happened or may happen, but based on what's politically correct at the time."
Fasano's request followed several similar requests from across the state, The Miami Herald reported at the time. David Golt, chief of Broward School's Special Investigative Unit, Leon County Sheriff Larry Campbell and the county superintendent of schools all called for funding for more resource officers.
Being a freshman lawmaker at the time, Fasano said he didn't introduce an amendment himself because he believed it only stood a chance if it had backing from someone like the governor.
In response to questions about the letter, a spokesperson for Scott said his previous six budget proposals have all included requests for increased funding for the state's 'Safe School' fund. Lawmakers failed to act on those requests too.
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