Written by Aaron Mudd of the Bowling Green Daily News
School district leaders are raising concerns after Gov. Andy Beshear recently signed into law a bill that requires at least one armed police officer to be assigned to each school campus in a district – all with no specific state funding set aside to make that feasible.
“Why are you passing a law (and) there’s no revenue stream to cover the expense,” Warren County Public Schools Superintendent Rob Clayton said, posing the question to state lawmakers who backed Senate Bill 8.
“That to me just generates more questions,” he said.
Senate Bill 8 stipulates that local school boards, school district superintendents, the heads of state controlled facilities and local and state law enforcement agencies shall work together to fulfill the requirement “as funds and qualified personnel become available.” The legislation’s emergency provision makes it effective immediately.
The controversial measure represents a continuation of the General Assembly’s efforts to improve school safety, especially in response to a fatal shooting at Marshall County High School in 2018 that killed two students. It follows a comprehensive school safety law passed last year that did not specify whether school resource officers needed to carry a gun.
Senate Bill 8 won strong majorities in the state House and Senate before being sent to Beshear’s desk.
Before signing it into law Feb. 21, Beshear defended the legislation as necessary to prevent school violence.
“I simply cannot ask a school resource officer to stop an armed gunman entering a school without them having the ability to not only achieve this mission but also to protect themselves,” the governor said, according to The Associated Press. “We must be able to stop the worst of the worst.”
The status of state funding for the measure remains unclear. The Courier Journal in Louisville reported that Beshear allocated about $18 million for school safety facility upgrades in his budget request to lawmakers. That only covers a portion of the more than $121 million needed to pay for the requirements of last year’s school safety law.
Local school district superintendents remain uncertain about what the expectations are for local schools under Senate Bill 8 and who will cover the cost of implementing the law.
Clayton questions whether the law amounts to yet another “unfunded mandate” from Frankfort. He said his district is already one of the lowest funded in the state in terms of per-pupil dollars, and it’s had to get creative to cover teacher training and school transportation – both areas the state cut during the previous budget cycle.
Bowling Green Independent School District Superintendent Gary Fields raised similar concerns, questioning the “extremely expensive requirement” of staffing a qualified officer at each school campus.
“How are districts able to handle that in a way that’s even possible,” with their current budgets, Fields asked.
He also questioned how quickly local law enforcement agencies would be able to help school districts comply with the law by providing enough suitable officers.
“There’s a capacity issue that I’m a little worried about with just the staffing number,” Fields said.
Both school districts have been working to add school resource officers to their schools, even before it became a priority for state lawmakers.
In 2018, Warren County Public School’s board of education passed a property tax increase to make a partnership with the Warren County Sheriff’s Office feasible and begin doubling the number of school resource officers in its schools to a total of 10.
Along with an officer at each high school, the district staffs one officer at each of its middle schools and another officer travels to different elementary schools as needed.
Clayton estimated that, to comply with Senate Bill 8, the district would need a total of 18 officers, creating an additional recurring expense of about $400,000.
Warren County Sheriff Brett Hightower emphasized that school resource officers are present to build relationships with students as much as they are to act as a deterrent for school violence.
“It puts people more at ease when they know there is an armed, trained individual on those campuses,” he said.
Still, adding officers to schools comes at a significant cost to local law enforcement agencies, he said. That makes state support necessary, he said.
The Bowling Green Independent School District currently staffs an officer at its high school, an arrangement made possible by a partnership with the Bowling Green Police Department to share costs. To add officers to each of its eight school campuses, Fields estimated a cost of up to $500,000 a year.
“This can’t be done without funding,” from the state, he said.
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Written by Aaron Mudd. Cross-posted from the
Bowling Green Daily News via the Kentucky Press News Service.