Orange County Commissioners OK School Resource Officer Money

The Orange County Commission has approved $11 million that will be earmarked for hiring additional school resource officers to cover all the district's public schools.

The funding comes after Orange COunty Mayor Teresa Jacobs and Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings were engaged in a highly public sparring match over the matter.

Demings had said that a lack of funding meant that deputies would not be able to consistently cover all public schools in the district.Jacobs had claimed that she found out about that state of affairs just days before the start of the school year.

In the end, the County Commission voted to provide enough money to hire on additional school resource officers.

The district reportedly needs 75 such officers to fully cover all of its public schools.

The school resource officers are required personnel under the terms of a new law passed during the last legislative session.

The law puts a battery of new safety measures in place at schools across the state, and was passed in the aftermath of the shootings at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Broward County.


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