(L-R) Charlie Fudge, Gene Oker and Roy Connelly at the WMNF studio in Tampa, Florida on Nov. 24, 2023. Credit: Photo by Ray Roa

House and Senate committees on Tuesday approved bills that would create a compensation program for victims of abuse at the state’s now-closed Dozier School for Boys in Jackson County and another reform school in Okeechobee County.

The House Appropriations Committee and the Senate Criminal and Civil Justice Appropriations Committee approved the measures (HB 21 and SB 24), sponsored by Rep. Michelle Salzman, R-Pensacola, Rep. Kiyan Michael, R-Jacksonville, and Sen. Darryl Rouson, D-St. Petersburg.

The bills would create a compensation program that would be administered by the Attorney General’s Office.

It would apply to living people who were abused between 1940 and 1975 while students at the schools.

The bills do not detail amounts of money, saying they would be “subject to appropriation” from the Legislature.

The Dozier school, which closed in 2011, has drawn widespread attention during the past decade as details have emerged about students being abused and, in some cases, killed.

A House staff analysis, for example, said University of South Florida forensic anthropologists leading an excavation of Dozier property found human remains in 55 unmarked graves, “some with gunshot wounds or signs of blunt force trauma.”

Lawmakers in 2017 formally apologized to victims of the abuse.