COLUMBUS, Ohio — Last week, Ohio’s house panel passed the $88.1 billion state operating budget with some changes to the proposed budget it received. Some of those changes involve items related to support for school safety.
Tanisha Pruitt is a state policy fellow for Policy Matters Ohio. She and her colleagues have been working with some state representatives about items they see as a priority to keep Ohio’s schools safe.
"What we see is since the pandemic school violence has grown in Ohio,” Pruitt said.
When the state budget was first introduced, $194 million was proposed specifically for school resource officers. But in the House approved budget, that number went down to $0.
"The stipulation of that money was that it be used on for school resource officers," Pruitt said.
Pruitt said that money was instead put toward the foundational budget for education, so that each school district could decide how to use the funding it receives.
"If they need it, they can use it for a school resource officer, if they don’t, they can use it for whatever else they want,” Pruitt said.
Pruitt said she’s spoke with leaders in several districts who said they don’t need a school resource officer for a number of different reasons.
“It may not be necessary, or they have such a small school that school resource officers may not be needed but instead, they need more money for mental health support, hiring those counselors, maybe creating more safety programs and protocols,” Pruitt said.
The House also approved more than $9 million per year for the Ohio School Safety Center and more than $12 million per year in school safety training grants. Several million dollars also went to several mental health resources.
"We need to hire more school psychologists, we need to hire more mental health counselors,” Pruitt said.
Pruitt added that creating a state data system for reported incidents of violence in schools could help in creating new initiatives to put an end to it.
"We need to make our schools safer, and we need to prepare for any, Lord forbid, any school shootings or anything that may come in the coming years,” Pruitt said.
The budget now heads to the Senate for consideration and possible changes before making its way to Governor DeWine’s desk. Lawmakers must past the state’s operating budget for the next two years by June 30.