Matt Bush, FISM News
Governor Ron DeSantis is pushing legislation that will provide a $5,000 bonus to law enforcement officers who choose to move to his state. This bonus is part of a concentrated effort to recruit seasoned and experienced law enforcement officers to Florida regardless of vaccination status.
DeSantis told host Maria Bartiromo on “Sunday Morning Futures” of Fox News, “We’re actually actively working to recruit out-of-state law enforcement, because we do have needs in our police and our sheriff’s departments. So, in the next legislative session, I’m going to hopefully sign legislation that gives a $5,000 bonus to any out-of-state law enforcement that relocates in Florida.”
The initiative is a means of addressing vacancy needs in police and sheriff’s departments across the state. The needs of Florida coincide with instances of good police officers in other states being laid off due to their refusal to be vaccinated.
DeSantis’s move is based on the idea that a police officer’s vaccination status does not make a police officer any better or worse at his job. With this initiative, DeSantis hopes to strengthen police and sheriff’s departments across the state, not just for the short term, but also into the future.
While DeSantis has made his beliefs about the Biden administration’s vaccine mandates known, calling them “unconstitutional” and saying they “violated state laws in Florida,” this initiative would take it a step further by moving to benefit those officers left vulnerable by mandates in other areas of the country.
To DeSantis and others in Florida, this push is about valuing law enforcement officers and showing them that they are high priority assets to the state and to the people who live there. During a recent press conference at the Lakeland, Florida Police Department DeSantis said:
We’re proud in Florida of being a state where people who are in uniform know they’re appreciated, they know they have the support — certainly of the governor and the attorney general, but also our legislature and the people throughout the state of Florida.
DeSantis has seen the morale of police officers in Florida and across the country fall, even at a time when they have put their lives on the line to save the lives of the people that need them. He further stated that this law is about honoring those officers who continue to serve in the face of danger and making sure they are taken care of and compensated well:
If you’re not being treated well, we’ll treat you better here. You can fill important needs for us, and we’ll compensate you as a result.”
According to a Fox News article, Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody describes Florida as “the most pro-law enforcement state in the country” while criticizing last year’s calls to defund the police as “idiotic” and “criminal.”
Through this legislation DeSantis is working towards creating the type of environment that seasoned, professional law enforcement officers will want to be a part of.