One of Broward’s largest cities could soon remove its police officers from 14 schools, potentially leaving the school district to rely on lower-paid armed security officers.
Pembroke Pines Mayor Angelo Castillo sent letters in recent weeks to School Board Chairwoman Lori Alhadeff and School Board member Allen Zeman, saying the district must pay the full cost of police officers for the city to continue providing school resource officers.
“The City of Pembroke Pines remains fully prepared and willing to continue providing SROs to all district schools in our city, however, the district must pay the full cost of that service,” Castillo wrote in a June 27 letter to Zeman.
His letter listed the cost of each full-time officer at $165,251, including salary, benefits and equipment costs.
The school district negotiated with the League of Cities and the Broward County Chiefs of Police Association for a reimbursement rate of $108,150 for the past year, $113,560 for the upcoming year and $119,240 for the 2025-26 year. But Castillo told the South Florida Sun Sentinel his city didn’t agree to those terms.
Zeman told the Sun Sentinel that other cities’ police departments and the Broward Sheriff’s Office have agreed to the new schedule.
The school district has had agreements with 13 municipalities and the Broward Sheriff’s Office for school resource officers. Pembroke Pines provided police officers in schools the past year without a contract and without getting paid yet, Castillo said. He wrote that the district’s proposed contract would lead to a “$2.1 million financial shortfall that our police budget cannot bear.”
School Board member Debbi Hixon said giving Pembroke Pines what it asks for would have a domino effect.
“If we do it for one city, we would have to to do it for all the municipalities and the BSO, and that’s just not feasible with the budget we have,” she said. “So we may be looking at less SRO’s and more guardians.”
Guardians, or safe school officers, are non-sworn security officials who carry guns. These officers make about $40,000 and cost the district about $60,000 each when benefits are included, district documents show.
“We were advised … that the district uses guardians at other public schools and had an ample supply of professionally trained guardians that could provide security at all of the district’s public schools in Pembroke Pines,” Castillo wrote. “This of course is a district decision to make. We are increasingly concerned that the district has yet to convey their decision because we are just weeks away from when students return to classrooms.”
The district created its guardian program in 2018 to comply with a state law, passed after the Parkland tragedy, which requires all public schools to have at least one armed staff member at each school.
A switch to guardians in Pembroke Pines would mean the city’s two district-run high schools, Charles Flanagan High and West Broward High, would be the only district high schools without school resource officers, district officials said.
Guardians are most common in elementary schools that deal with fewer issues that require the need for law enforcement. In Pembroke Pines, the city has been providing police officers in the three district-run middle schools and nine elementary schools in the city, in addition to the high schools.
Superintendent Howard Hepburn is scheduled to meet Tuesday with city leaders to try to resolve the issue, officials said.
“Every Broward County Public School will have a school safety officer to ensure our students and staff’s security and well-being,” district spokesman John Sullivan told the Sun Sentinel. “There will be a School Resource Officer in schools where we partner with the municipality. In other schools, we will have dedicated guardians.”
Zeman said he hopes Pembroke Pines will continue to partner with the district.
“SRO compensation is the classic puzzle. We have a state mandate to provide law enforcement staff in our schools, but we didn’t get enough money to pay for it,” he said.
Castillo countered that the district doesn’t have trouble from some schools. Pembroke Pines, which provides protection for its city-run charter school system, also supplies school resource officers for several charter schools, including Renaissance and Somerset. They pay the full costs, he said.
“Yet we have an Institutional discount” for the school district, Castillo said in a recent city commission meeting. “There’s this assumption that because it involves the protection of children, if we should ask to be paid appropriately, we are somehow endangering the children.
“We don’t want to endanger the children. We want to continue providing the service. We simply want to be paid for the service we provide.”
Pembroke Pines isn’t the first city to complain about how much the district reimburses for police service. Most cities have been asking the district to pay the full costs in recent years.
Last summer, the city of Hollywood asked the School Board to increase reimbursement to $166,959 per officer as well as pay for two supervisors at a cost of $208,261 each. That request prompted board members to ask then-Superintendent Peter Licata to pursue a district police force.
A proposal brought by Licata in January was rejected after district officials struggled to explain how it would save the district money and provide service that was just as good or better. The district decided to negotiate with the League of Cities and the police chiefs association, and Hollywood and other cities agreed to the three-year contract that includes annual increases.
But Pembroke Pines officials say they were not part of those negotiations and never agreed to those terms.
Danio Gutierrez, whose son attends Flanagan High, said he would like to see police protection in city schools but he also thinks the city should be willing to help pay the costs.
“If the city is subsidizing to have safe schools, I think it’s worth it. We pay taxes to provide funds to make the community safer. I don’t see why the school district has to carry all that weight.”
Gutierrez noted that highly trained police officers were not prepared for some school shootings in Parkland and Uvalde.
“Imagine having guardians with less training and less pay dealing with these situations,” he said.
Castillo told the Sun Sentinel it’s the district’s decision if they choose guardians instead of police officers.
“If parents have a concern about that, they really need to talk to them about it. We’re happy to provide the service,” he said.
