HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis held a news conference Wednesday morning at the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office to highlight what’s become the thousands of recipients of the state’s $5,000 recruitment bonus for new or transferring law-enforcement officers.
The Florida Law Enforcement Recruitment Bonus Payment Program became law in April 2022, billed as a way to aid in the recruitment of law enforcement officers via a one-time $5,000 signing bonus.
Since then, the state has awarded more than 8,700 bonuses, DeSantis said Wednesday.
“These are bonuses of $5,000 to any LEO recruit whether you’re someone that’s young in Florida or new to the profession, from within our state — which is the majority of them — or if you’re experienced and you’re transferring out of state from Chicago or New York City or Atlanta or wherever, you get a $5,000 bonus as well," he said. “(...) We’ve had a lot of success with this. We’ve had about 2,000 recruits from out of state. We’ve had recruits from 49 states and two U.S territories that have relocated to Florida. We have more than 500 from New York, California, Illinois and other likeminded states.”
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The governor was joined by 13th Judicial Circuit State Attorney Susan Lopez, Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister, and Jay Collins, the state’s newly-appointed lieutenant governor. The Republican state senator from Tampa was tapped Tuesday for the position, which had been vacant since February when former Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nunez became interim president of Florida International University.
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Watch Wednesday’s news conference again in the video player below or by clicking here.