Florida House Speaker discusses school safety plan

Governor Scott continued to promote his plan to prevent mass shootings Monday, and House Speaker Richard Corcoran said they are on the same page. 

“If you go to school in Florida, you're going to know that your child can come home safely,” said Scott. “If you are a teacher, if you work in one of these schools you are going to know you are going to come home safely. That's step one. We're going to spend $500 million. I have two weeks left in my legislative session. I'm not waiting for the federal government.”

In an interview with FOX 13, Speaker Corcoran said state leaders agree on raising the age limit for buying rifles and extending the waiting period to rifles. He said they agree the Baker Act needs to change to give law enforcement more authority to take guns from people under mental evaluation.

Corcoran also said the legislature is committed to funding enhancements in school security and mental health services. 

"I think we're going to end up somewhere between $400 million and $500 million, because the House and Senate have $400 million and the governor is at $500 million. We'll fall somewhere in that range. But it's not the amount of money. It's not the policy. It's not the wording. Whatever it takes for us to make sure this never happens again, we're going to do it." 

Corcoran said they will cover the costs by taking some of the money from recurring reserves, some money from lawmakers' projects, and possibly some from the tax-cut package.

Meanwhile, the speaker send a letter to Governor Scott asking him to suspend Broward Sheriff Scott Israel for what Corcoran calls incompetence and dereliction of duty after the sheriff’s office received numerous warnings about the shooter weeks and months in advance.

“The constitution allows the governor to suspend this individual, and then… the state Senate either acts to reinstate him or to remove him permanently. So if the governor did suspend him, we feel very confidently that our colleagues across the hall would remove him altogether which is what we'd like," Corcoran said. 

He also ordered a House investigation into how local agencies responded to the shootings.