Last year, lawmakers passed a bill that gave schools about $96,000 each for three years for safety upgrades like bulletproof windows and resource officers. But, as first reported by Oklahoma news station KFOR, districts said they couldn’t access rolled over funds from one year to the next after OSDE removed it from their accounts — despite the agency’s previous guidance that districts could use rollover.
On Aug. 12, State Superintendent Ryan Walters requested Drummond to weigh in.
In his opinion and accompanying letter, Drummond said the carryover funding is allowed and the department must disperse those funds as the legislature intended. He listed four reasons:
- The program’s law does not have any fiscal year limitations on when school districts must use the funds.
- The program’s law only uses the words “expend” or “expenditure” when referring to OSDE. Therefore, any statutory limitations on carryover and expenditure of the funds would only apply to OSDE, not school districts.
- There are no constitutional fiscal year limitations restricting the ability to carry over funds to the next fiscal year.
- Because OSDE requires districts to use its General Fund for the safety enhancement program, and because state law allows districts to carry over General Fund balances, districts are permitted to carry over the safety program’s funds from one year to the next.
Drummond also addressed OSDE’s shift in guidance on its website FAQs, which had previously said carryover funds were allowed, but was then removed from the webpage.
“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,” Drummond wrote.
Drummond said it was “deeply troubling” the funds were not managed correctly, and that Walters waited more than a year to seek guidance.
“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,” Drummond wrote. “I pray that your failure to deploy those funds does not result in deadly consequences.”
Senate Pro Tem Greg Treat (R-Oklahoma City) said in a statement Sunday the law was clear when it was passed and shouldn’t have needed an attorney general opinion, but the circumstances made it necessary.
“Lawmakers spoke loud and clear when we passed this legislation,” Treat said in the statement. “It is now my hope there are no further delays complying with the law.”
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