TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Action News Jax is investigating how a recruitment tool touted by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to help get more cops on the street could be at risk.
Lawmakers appear poised to slash funding for the $5,000 recruitment bonuses nearly in half, despite statistics obtained by Action News Jax showing they appear to have had a major impact in recent years.
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DeSantis has been touring the state since 2022, handing the checks to new law enforcement officers who join the force.
More than 7,800 of those bonuses have been awarded to date.
The bonus program got $17 million last year.
This year, DeSantis asked for $20 million, but budget negotiations between the House and Senate don’t seem to be coming close to that ask.
“I feel very strongly about making sure that we continue this program,” State Senator Nick DiCeglie (R-St. Petersburg) said.
DiCeglie is tasked with negotiating the funding in the Senate.
Initially, neither the House or Senate budget included funding for the bonus program.
Now, the Senate and House are both pitching funding the program at $10 million, half of what DeSantis sought and $7 million below last year’s funding level.
“And hopefully we can, you know, kind of put some of the politics to the side here and really focus on making sure our communities are safe,” DiCeglie said.
DiCeglie credits the bonuses with helping attract and recruit new officers to Florida from other states.
Statistics from the Florida Department of Commerce seem to back that up.
According to those statistics, Florida has added more than 9,200 patrol officers statewide since 2019, which is the largest raw increase in the country.
Florida’s increase was three times larger than the state that added the second highest number of new officers, Texas, which added just shy of 3,400 officers.
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Meanwhile on the other end of the spectrum, California lost more than 7,200 officers between 2019 and 2024.
DiCeglie argued Florida increasing its police force by nearly 24 percent since 2019 officers has helped bring crime down across the state.
In Jacksonville, the city saw the fewest number of murders in three decades last year.
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“Other parts of this country, it’s well documented, when they talk about defunding the police and slashing budgets when it comes to law enforcement, those crime levels go up,” DiCeglie said.
Lawmakers are still deep in budget negotiations.
At this point, the hope is to vote on a final budget on June 18.
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