As a new school safety law that will allow armed military veterans and former police to patrol schools took effect last week, state officials touted funding for sworn law enforcement on school campuses.
State education finance official Matt Ross reminded superintendents in a July 9 webcast about new state funding available to offset the salary costs of school resource officers or SROs—sworn law enforcement officers specifically trained to work with schoolchildren. Based on new state budget language, districts will be reimbursed up to $20,000 for each campus that employs at least one on-site, full-time certified SRO, said Ross.
Lawmakers included $34.5 million in the 2024-26 state budget to cover the reimbursements. The new state budget cycle began July 1.
The earmark showed continued support for SROs despite a 2024 law allowing non-sworn armed guards, called “Kentucky guardians,” to be hired by local boards of education starting next year. Part of a larger school safety law created with the passage of 2024 Senate Bill 2 that took effect July 15, the guardian law has been called a “stop-gap” measure to help districts struggling to hire SROs as required under a 2019 law.
State lawmakers backing SB 2 in the last legislative session said around 600 public school campuses in Kentucky do not have SROs, LINK’s content partner, The Kentucky Lantern, reported in April.
“I would hope that we all want what’s best for a school that doesn’t have any coverage at all,” SB 2 sponsor Sen. Max Wise, R-Campbellsville, told his peers as the armed guard bill cleared a legislative committee last spring.
Guardians hired under the bill will work on campuses without at least one certified on-site full-time SRO as required by law. Only honorably discharged veterans, retired Kentucky state troopers, retired special and sworn law enforcement and former federal law enforcement officers certified by the Kentucky Center for School Safety can serve as guardians under SB 2, and only “until a certified school resource officer is available” starting in the fall of 2025.
Because they are not sworn officers, guardians will not have the power to make arrests. SROs have that power, with a majority (69.3%) consulting with school administrators prior to making an arrest, according to a 2024 report from the Kentucky Center for School Safety.
As for SROs, Kentucky has about 789 of those officers across 613 public school campuses statewide, KCSS reported this year. In 2023, the center reported 686 SROs across those campuses. In 2022, that number was 523.
In Boone, Kenton and Campbell counties there were 65 total SROs based on last year’s reporting according to James Poynter, NKY’s regional representative for the Kentucky Association of School Resource Officers. Poynter is currently a Grant County deputy sheriff and SRO.
“Boone County had the most with 30, followed by Kenton with 24 and Campbell with nine,” Poynter told LINK nky in an email. “Those numbers are by county, not school district or police department,” he said. “These numbers are based on last school year’s reporting. Agencies continue to add SROs every year.”
Districts that intend to participate in the SRO reimbursement program must let the Kentucky Department of Education know by July 31, Ross told superintendents last week.
Also joining the July 9 webcast was state Education Commissioner Dr. Robbie Fletcher, a former Lawrence County Schools superintendent who took over as commissioner on July 1. Fletcher reminded superintendents that reimbursement will be dispersed per campus, not per school.
Kentucky has more than 1,470 public schools – more than double the number of campuses reportedly served by SROs in fiscal year 2024.
Funds not spent on SRO reimbursement will be turned over to the state’s budget reserve trust fund, also called the rainy day fund. The balance of the fund topped $3 billion before lawmakers approved significant spending on infrastructure projects in the 2024 budget session.
In fiscal year 2024, over $11.4 million in school safety funds were allocated to 174 public school districts (the state’s 171 county and independent school districts plus the Kentucky School for the Deaf, Kentucky School for the Blind, and Model Laboratory School in Richmond), according to the KCSS 2023 annual report. Of that amount, SRO programs received 35%; alternative education programs came in second at 23%.
State lawmakers have appropriated over $243 million for safe school efforts since 1999, as reported by the Kentucky Center for School Safety.