Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, the chair of the Senate Finance and Taxation Education Committee, asks a question during a budget presentation in the Alabama Statehouse on Feb. 6, 2024. Money was allocated to ALEA for the program. (Brian Lyman/Alabama Reflector)
The Alabama State Department of Education is seeking a major increase in school security funding in their Education Trust Fund (ETF) budget request for fiscal year 2026.
The requested amount is nearly $53 million, around $51.4 million more than what was allocated last year.
The State Board of Education approved the request last week. It will go to Gov. Kay Ivey’s office, which will make the budget proposal to the Legislature at the start of the 2025 regular session in February. Legislators will make the final determinations on budget allocations.
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The Department’s K-12 budget request was around $6.4 billion. The current ETF is around $9.349 billion.
The board has spoken about the increased request for school security before. The funding would cover a bill sponsored by Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, to increase school security.
Orr’s legislation requires the State Board of Education to set criteria for school safety inspections; allows the board to award grants to local school boards to bring security features in compliance; requires local school board to hire district safety coordinators, and directs the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency to work with local school boards to map schools.
Orr, who also chairs the Senate Finance and Taxation Education Committee, said Thursday that he has not spoken with State Superintendent Eric Mackey on the request but had heard that Mackey spoke about the request “secondhand, thirdhand, I understand is a priority of his, and it certainly is one of mine.”
“Under the new framework of the bill, we’ll be able to look at hardening our schools based on a – I’ll call it an agnostic grading score – among the schools, and then funding based on need,” he said.
Orr said that he understood it to also be a priority for the Governor.
A message was left with a spokesperson for Gov. Kay Ivey Friday morning.
Mackey has said previously the bill was bifurcated, so the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency was funded last year but not the ALSDE portion. The Agency had received $1.5 million.
Funding and implementation of the bill would not be complete by the end of the year, Orr said. The senator said he wants to create a structure to send money where it’s needed. Orr predicted that would be on more of a school-by-school rather than district-by-district basis.
“We’ll take it one year at a time, at a time, but that’s the whole reason putting a framework in place was necessary, rather than throwing a lot of money into the wind and telling school districts to spend it on security and hoping because all the needs are not the same,” he said.
A message was left with a spokesperson for the Alabama State Department of Education requesting comment.
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