What the school resource officer conflict with OCPS means for Winter Park
Winter Park provides five school resource officers and is asking for additional compensation
Dec. 20, 2024
By Beth Kassab
Winter Park is one of five cities in a standoff with Orange County Public Schools over how much the district should pay for local police agencies to station officers at schools.
Winter Park Police provides five officers to public schools in the city — one at Brookshire Elementary; one at Lakemont Elementary, one at the Ninth Grade Center and two at the Winter Park High main campus.
Both the school district and the cities say they want to keep school resource officers in place rather than a state-allowed guardian program, which does not provide sworn law enforcement officers. And safety is top of mind in the wake of school shootings and other threats that are part of campus life today.
OCPS, the 8th largest school district in the nation, pays the city about $72,000 a year per officer. That agreement is set to expire at the end of this school year.
Winter Park — along with Apopka, Ocoee, Winter Garden and Windermere — say that’s not enough to cover the true cost of supplying officers to the schools such as health insurance and benefits, the pension fund, equipment and overtime.
Mayor Sheila DeCiccio said she is responding to questions and concerns from parents about the negotiations.
“While we understand the financial challenges OCPS faces, our agencies are also contending with significant fiscal pressures,” read a statement from Apopka Police Chief McKinley on behalf of the five cities, including Winter Park. “These include difficulties in recruiting personnel and ensuring adequate equipment to meet the growing demands of our cities. Addressing these financial challenges through appropriate funding is essential to sustaining the high level of service we provide.”
The cities are asking for an increase that would cost the district an extra $2 million a year — or about $39,000 for the city of Winter Park.
The Police department accounts for the largest expenditure in Winter Park’s general fund budget with costs increasing this year by nearly 7% to about $19.5 million.
The school district said in an email to parents earlier this week that it already provided a 20% increase in the reimbursement rate to cities this year over the previous year and proposed a $75,000 per officer rate for the 2026-27 school year.
Four of nine law enforcement agencies — including the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, Orlando, Maitland — agreed to the OCPS terms and signed a three-year contract.
“The district-proposed SRO reimbursement increase far exceeded the 11% salary increase given to our deserving teachers and support staff over the last two years,” stated the email to parents.
The five cities that have refused to sign the three-year deal say their costs are continuing to soar and they also devote additional department resources schools, particularly when there are threats and investigations that take place on campus.
“In addition to the basic costs, which are not covered by the OCPS contract, each law enforcement agency spends a significant amount of additional time and resources completing criminal investigations as well as active threat investigations in the schools despite the fact that OCPS funds their own Police Department,” the statement from the cities said.
The school district and the cities are scheduled to continue negotiations in January.
WinterParkVoiceEditor@gmail.com
If the rate requested by the city is expected to cover the full costs of an officer, that seems an overreach since schools are open only about nine months each year and the officers are available for other city work the rest of the year. Additionally, these are public schools inside city limits and it would seem natural for the jurisdiction where they operate to provide police services around the school perimeters and on campus in the event of incidents on campus requiring law enforcement. So the request for officers to be present on campus during school hours is incremental, not justifying a full cost recovery of the entire salary and benefits package.
I can only speak to Winter Park. That said our city commissioners mange to spend money like its water on less than needed projects…absorbing $39,000 total for the 5 or 6 schools in the winter park zone is merely and accounting adjustment.
Part of the job of our police department is protecting citizens. I know not all students are residents so perhaps the district reimburses the cities for their percentage of county students and the police department covers the officer costs for the city’s percentage of residents in each school.
In my opinion, it would be a disaster to lose our SROs and citizens should consider bellying up additional taxes to make sure our kids have the best possible protection. There are also projects in the city’s budget that could be cut for this important service. For example, I would forego the new restrooms in Central Park rather than taking SROs out of schools and I think SROs are more important than new parks.
As a retired OCPS administrator, I know the importance of the SRO. Too many shootings are happening and our students and staff are becoming apprehensive about being in a school building. I know OCPS has implemented numerous safety measures but so did many of schools where shootings have taken place. We need to keep the SROs in our Winter Park schools.
Having someone with a firearm and less than 4 weeks of training in place of a sworn law enforcement officer does not seem like best practice.
Our city’s current solution of staffing a police officer at schools seems appropriate. Really hope that the city and school district can work this out. A total impact of $39,000 to Winter Park seems trivial.
School districts do not have the privilege to increase their operating budgets. They are beholden to the state. If they did have taxing authority, it’d be an add-on to property taxes (us).
As it is, with what they have, their budget flexibility is minimal compared to cities and towns. And, as I read it, they are ponying up a good bit more for SROs.
I’m pretty sure anyone could go in and “DOGE” up OCPS’s actual board member budget (ie those much needed conference trips, lunches, dinners etc) and find all the money they need to compensate these cities for the costs of the resource offers supplied to keep their schools safe.