AUSTIN, Texas — A massive school safety bill, HB 3, under consideration in Austin would require at least one armed security officer on every campus within a school district.
There could be even more, but the legislation leaves that final determination up to the local school board.
The bill’s author, State Rep. Dustin Burrows, calls it a deterrent.
And the Republican from Lubbock thinks such an officer could possibly neutralize someone before they could barricade inside a classroom.
“I would remind everybody this is what we do at airports, this is what we do at courthouses,” Burrows told us on Inside Texas Politics. “Ideally, every school district would not have just one person, but two people.”
As far as how districts will pay for the added expense, the bill provides $10 for each student plus $15,000 per campus. Schools could also receive an additional dollar for each student per every $50, but there are some caveats tied to these additional funds because of the state’s education code.
Those dollars, though, would still fall short in large districts like Dallas ISD.
Burrows tells us the legislation gives districts flexibility in terms of how and where they hire security officers, and each option would have different costs.
“They can hire their own ISD police force. They can contract with outsource. They can also go through the Guardian or Marshal program, where they actually find somebody who’s an existing personnel and put them through highly specialized training to make sure they’re there and available,” the lawmaker explained.
(The bill also requires each school district or public junior college district to adopt and implement a multi-hazard emergency operations plan. To learn more, listen to Rep. Burrows’ full interview)
Burrows other priority legislation is HB 2127, which would prevent local governments from implementing regulations over areas the state already covers.
During the public hearing for this legislation, many speakers expressed concern over how the bill would allow payday or predatory lenders to continue to operate with impunity.
The state has yet to regulate that industry, but 49 Texas cities have created rules overseeing the businesses.
Rep. Burrows broke some news on Inside Texas Politics when he told us he’s adding a “carve-out” to the bill to allow those 49 cities to keep those regulations in place.
“The scope of the bill is really to protect small businesses who had a variety of complaints. And they made their voices heard at that hearing,” he said. “So, with respect to the payday or predatory lending, we’re already working on a grandfather clause that will be in a new committee substitute to make sure we’re not having a conversation that I think distracts from the greater good this bill does.”