DeSantis offers bonuses to lure out-of-state cops
TALLAHASSEE — At a Fraternal Order of Police event in Indianapolis on Aug. 17, Gov. Ron DeSantis unveiled a plan to attract more cops to Florida: $5,000 signing bonuses. He contrasted his support for police with cuts to law enforcement in large U.S. cities, saying they had hurt morale and set off an exodus of officers that has led to a surge in crime.
“New York City cut $382 million from the NYPD; shootings up dramatically, but also a 75% increase in officers leaving either through retirement or resignation,” DeSantis said. “There are many other cities we can go through where the same story happens over and over again.”
But here in Florida, DeSantis is facing extensive and chronic recruitment and retention problems within his own Florida Highway Patrol, which continues to lose officers to higher-paying local police agencies. The reduced staffing has led to cuts in services. A Sun-Sentinel investigation last year found fewer cops patrol Florida’s roads than 20 years ago, and there has been a 38% decrease in tickets issued over the past five years and a 41% increase in crashes.
In January an FHP officer told a state Senate panel there the agency had about 130 vacancies. That total has now risen to 220, FHP spokesman Capt. Peter Bergstresser confirmed in an email.
“It’s a pay issue,” FHP Lt. Col. Troy Thompson told the Senate Transportation Committee in January. “Over the last few years, we average an attrition rate of around 180 folks a year.”
The officers are hard to
replace. After receiving more than 1,000 applications, the requirements for the job whittle the number down to 50, and an 18-week academy course reduces the pool to about 30 to 35 each year.
Even then it could be hard to retain them in the FHP. Thompson said a trooper who served for 20 years could still be making less than $50,000, while the rate could reach $92,000 at a sheriff ’s office in a large county in the I-4 corridor.
“When we look at our recruitment and selection process I think most of the folks we’re trying to recruit end up going to other agencies in many cases because our starting salary is right around the $40,000 range by the time we get them out in the field,” Thompson said.
The discrepancy in pay and FHP staffing issues are problems that predate DeSantis’ term as governor, and DeSantis has approved salary increases to try to stem the flow of patrol personnel out of the agency. He also secured $1,000 bonuses from lawmakers
for first responders this year, using money from the federal stimulus package.
Coming out of the Great Recession in 2010, Florida faced multi-billion dollar budget deficits, and salaries for state workers were frozen. That started to change in the past five years as the Legislature approved annual pay increases of up to 4% for some FHP officers, but the gap remains.
DeSantis’ latest proposal, which the Legislature will take up when the next regular session begins in January, might not help alleviate the FHP’s staffing issues.
Along with the $5,000 signing bonus, the plan includes a $5 million academy scholarship program and $1,000 in relocation expense costs for out-ofstate officers who take a police job in Florida. Those benefits, though, apply to any law enforcement job in the state, at local police and sheriff ’s departments, not just state agencies, so the gap in pay would remain.
DeSantis’ plan is part of his effort to boost the morale of law enforcement officers and build up his bona fides as a law-and-order conservative as he gears up to seek reelection next year and a possible run for the presidency in 2024.
“The objective is to enhance recruitment and show that Florida appreciates and values those who choose to pursue careers in law enforcement,” DeSantis spokeswoman Christina Pushaw wrote in an email. “Regrettably, radical anti-police sentiments have been amplified by many on the political left and in the mainstream media in recent years.”
Pushaw did not answer questions about how his proposal would affect the FHP staffing issues, or if DeSantis plans to push any other policies to address the highway patrol problem before the legislative session starts.
Besides bashing police defunding in his 20-minute speech at the FOP event, DeSantis touted the antiriot law he pushed that features harsher penalties for those who attack cops and slammed the policies of some prosecutors in the country not to prosecute or seek lesser penalties for smaller crimes, such as shoplifting.
“You have a culture of lawlessness that builds in communities and makes the job of people who are wearing the uniform all the more difficult and it makes our communities less safe,” DeSantis said. “You need to be building a culture of lawfulness, building a culture of the rule of law. And that requires people to be wearing the uniform, to be on the streets to be able to be dealing with a lot of things that sometimes you don’t want to have to do.”