{"id":272801,"date":"2026-05-15T21:47:21","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T21:47:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/272801\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T21:47:21","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T21:47:21","slug":"budget-conference-jacksonville-sheriffs-office-in-line-for-drone-dollars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/272801\/","title":{"rendered":"Budget conference: Jacksonville Sheriff&#8217;s Office in line for drone dollars"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Beat cops will get some aerial help soon.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Jacksonville Sheriff\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/flsheriffs.org\/staff\/sheriff-t-k-waters\/\" data-wpel-link=\"external\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"external noopener noreferrer nofollow\">T.K. Waters<\/a> may have more eyes in the sky funded by the state of Florida soon.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.flhouse.gov\/AppropriationProjectRequests\/2026\" data-wpel-link=\"external\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"external noopener noreferrer nofollow\">House Justice Budget Subcommittee<\/a> is agreeing to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.flsenate.gov\/Session\/Appropriations\/FY2026-27\/LocalFundingRequests\" data-wpel-link=\"external\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"external noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Senate Appropriations Committee on Criminal and Civil Justice\u2019s<\/a> $610,000 allotment to fund the Drone First Responder Program.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The funding was prioritized this Session by Sen.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.flsenate.gov\/Senators\/s4?pref=full\" data-wpel-link=\"external\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"external noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Clay Yarborough<\/a> and House Speaker Pro Tempore\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.flhouse.gov\/Sections\/Representatives\/details.aspx?MemberId=4712&amp;LegislativeTermId=91\" data-wpel-link=\"external\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"external noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Wyman Duggan<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The money, should it make it to the final budget ratified by Gov.\u00a0Ron DeSantis, will allow for the development of this program, which is intended to augment the efforts of officers on the ground who will deploy the devices.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Drones are expected to help with response times, to make efforts more efficient, and to keep police safer as they handle what the House appropriations request calls \u201cimprobable situations.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hklaw.com\/en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener external noreferrer nofollow\" data-wpel-link=\"external\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-702884 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Florida_Politics_and_Influence_Magazine_728x90.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"728\" height=\"90\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The $610,000 is expected to cover one fixed-wing mapping drone with required accessories, 10 drone inverters, 10 external drones for reconnaissance, 25 interior drones to assess building safety, batteries and maintenance.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The Jacksonville Sheriff\u2019s Office will be required to document the program\u2019s efficacy should it be funded. Given the close relationship between DeSantis and Waters, whom the Governor endorsed in a 2022 Special Election, it should be an easy sell for the executive branch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Beat cops will get some aerial help soon. Jacksonville Sheriff\u00a0T.K. Waters may have more eyes in the sky&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":272802,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[5888,116686,116,118,117,116687,2916,13771],"class_list":["post-272801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-clay-yarborough","tag-drone-first-responder-program","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-senate-appropriations-committee-on-criminal-and-civil-justice","tag-t-k-waters","tag-wyman-duggan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272801\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}