Brevard Sheriff Wayne Ivey steps in to secure Palm Bay schools after city council's SRO price hike

Brevard Sheriff's Office to take over security at 3 Palm Bay schools

Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey says there is no way on "God's green earth" he's going to let one school go uncovered.

PALM BAY, Fla - Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey says there is no way on "God's green earth" he's going to let one school go uncovered.

Starting July 1, the Brevard County Sheriff's Office will officially take over security at Heritage High, Bayside High, and Southwest Middle School. 

The backstory:

This all has to do with a new agreement between the Sheriff’s Office and the Brevard County School District.

The move comes after the Palm Bay City Council demanded a massive 76% price hike for their officers. The district says the council pushed to increase the cost per school resource officer (SRO) from roughly $74,500 to about $136,000. School leaders say if they matched that hike countywide, it would drain $3.8 million from schools — the financial equivalent of 19,000 student laptops.

"With that high increase, we basically said, hey, we can’t do that," said Matt Susin, Board Chair for Brevard County School Districts. "They are only in our schools for 80% of the time, which means the other 20%, all of our other municipalities, they go back to the road work. They go back to all of those other things that for us to pay a hundred percent, I feel like, would not be something we could ever entertain."

In a 3-2 vote, the Palm Bay City Council officially moved to reject the proposed agreement from the Brevard School Board.

"I think the council is looking to have that funded at 100% now, that was never part of the intent," said Palm Bay Mayor Rob Medina.

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FOX 35 reached out to the council members who voted for the price hike. Deputy Mayor Mike Jaffe sent a statement defending the move, saying in part:

"I believe the School Board should either fully reimburse the Palm Bay Police Department for the cost of SROs or implement the same compliant safety measures already being used successfully at the other schools in our community."

Although Mayor Medina disagrees with the outcome, he says there is still a chance for all parties to work together on this issue.

"These Palm Bay students are our children. So, I truly disagree with that aspect of the vote, but council has been put in that position to work that out," Medina said. "Perhaps we could join collectively a collaboration with the cities and other entities to lobby the state for additional funding for that shortfall."

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Following the council's vote and a conversation with Sheriff Ivey, the school board will now use state safety funds to reimburse the Sheriff to put deputies on all three campuses.

"By having him oversee the security and he was able to say, yeah, I can fund three more SROs at the price we were going to give Palm Bay, then it’s a no-brainer," Susin said.

Sheriff Ivey said he is extremely proud of the partnership with Superintendent Dr. Mark Rendell and the school board members.

"Leaving some of the largest campuses in our school system unprotected is never going to be an option for me... never!!" Ivey stated.