Tulsa, Okla. — New tonight, state leaders are claiming that the Oklahoma State Department of Education is attempting to take away funding that has been allocated for school security.
One of the people I spoke with was Senator Adam Pugh who claims that Oklahoma School districts reached out when they were denied access to school security funding.
Senator Adam Pugh says that in the 2023 legislative year, they appropriated a three-year pilot program totaling $150 million, $50 million a year for three years.
“That would be evenly divided to every school district, and it would allow schools to either augment their school resource officers with additional personnel, do any sort of technology upgrades if that was what they want to spend that money on,” saidSenator Adam Pugh, the Senate Education Chair
Pugh says that money could also be used for basic infrastructure upgrades that would help with school security.
He says that about three weeks ago, he had several superintendents and organizations reach out to him saying that the Oklahoma State Department changed the rules on how this money could be spent.
“I became concerned because, you know, the legislature was pretty clear in our legislative intent of how we wanted this money to be used and what it could be used for. We created a legislative revolving fund. We put this money in and would really be just overseen by the State Department of Education,” said Pugh.
Pugh says he had his staff reach out to OSDE, but they got no answers.
“That’s very frustrating for me when there’s just no communication, especially on an issue that’s this important.
OSDE sent us a statement saying OSDE is not taking away security enhancements from schools. Nothing is more important than the safety of our students and OSDE continues to do everything possible to protect our kids. There was no clear intent for rollover expressed by the Legislature. In fact, an amendment that provided for such a rollover failed and OSDE is bound to follow the law as written.
“So they release a public statement as opposed to just coming and talking to us, right?” asked Pugh. “There are a number of schools that are absolutely being negatively affected by this interpretation from the State Department.”
Pugh says that he’s had at least a dozen school districts reach out about this concern, but didn’t share with me which districts, saying that a lot of schools are afraid to be identified because they’re worried about retribution from OSDE.