Sarasota County Sheriff Tom Knight and School Board member Eric Robinson were found to be conspiring to undermine superintendent Todd Bowden, according to text messages obtained by the Herald-Tribune.

The messages were trying to force the school district to pay all of the cost of retaining and hiring new school resource officers last month.

In the exchange, Robinson tells Knight to ‘stay strong’ and ‘make us pay 100 percent.’ During a March 22nd work session, Robinson then tells Knight -if needed he will call various Sarasota County commissioners to ensure the district pays 100 percent of the costs.

Knight told the paper over the weekend the text messages were “bad judgment” and attributed them to his getting “too emotionally involved” in the security on Sarasota schools’ campuses. As to the teaming up to undermine Bowden, the sheriff said “he felt that he had been used by Robinson to create that idea.”