OKLAHOMA CITY (Aug. 18, 2024) – In an expedited opinion to help ensure schools have needed resources for enhanced security, Attorney General Gentner Drummond issued a formal opinion today directing the Oklahoma State Department of Education (OSDE) to send school districts long-overdue security funds.
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters requested the opinion Aug. 12 after news reports surfaced that the OSDE was refusing to let school districts keep unused dollars from the School Security Revolving Fund. In the wake of 2022’s deadly Uvalde, Texas, school shooting, the Oklahoma State Legislature last year established the fund as part of the School Resource Officer Program. Under that initiative, the OSDE was directed to distribute $50 million annually to school districts over a three-year period.
Drummond’s formal opinion, which has the force of law, supports the contention of legislative leaders that districts can carry over the funds from one year to the next.
In an accompanying letter to Walters, Drummond said he found it “deeply troubling” that the superintendent failed to administer the funds correctly. He also expressed frustration that Walters waited more than a year before seeking guidance from the Office of the Attorney General.
“Those wasted months have resulted in school districts not receiving millions of dollars in funds they could have used to bolster security and protect students” wrote Drummond. “I pray that your failure to deploy these funds does not result in deadly consequences.”
Moreover, the opinion notes that OSDE’s own guidance to school districts was inconsistent.
“The Department also advised school districts that their funds were available for carryover throughout the three-year program period but, arbitrarily and without notice, reversed course and zeroed out the district balances,” the opinion states.
It notes three key reasons that carryover is allowed:
House Bill 2903, which established the program and revolving fund, placed no fiscal year restrictions on use of the funds;
The relevant statutes only use “expend” or “expenditure” when addressing the OSDE, meaning that the state agency is the only entity to have restrictions; and
No constitutional fiscal year limitations restrict the ability to carry the funds forward into a subsequent fiscal year.
The opinion directs OSDE to immediately send the overdue funds to school districts across the state.
“A plain reading of the statute demonstrates legislative intent to provide $50,000,000 in each of the three years of the Program. Any distribution from the Revolving Fund that would give a school district the funding it should have received in a previous fiscal year would not create an inequality of expenditures or unequal division of the funds,” states the opinion.
“This [opinion] corrects the Department’s mismanagement that prevented school districts from receiving an equal distribution of Program Fund and an error that, in [Superintendent Walters’] own words, concerns and puts at risk the safety of schoolchildren.”
Read the letter and full opinion.
