Victoria Independent School District has made a big decision - we are bringing armed guards to all our campuses. And we are doing this because the safety of our students is our top priority. But we won't lie, this move comes with some hefty costs and we need to figure out how to balance the books.
You see, adding armed guards doesn't just mean paying their wages. We also need to factor in the cost of finding the right people for the job, getting them trained up, and making sure they have all the gear they need. While the new House Bill (HB) 3 lets us decide how we want to use our funds for school safety, it also means we've got to dig deep and find extra resources to cover these new costs.
House Bill 3, for the 2022-23 school year, we are receiving $113,116 and we are projecting to receive $476,374 for the 2023-24 school year. Just as an FYI, these allotment amounts fluctuate based on Public Education Information Management Systems (PEIMS) information, so if we ask our Chief Financial Officer today what the revenue is and ask her again in November, it will likely ebb up or down.
The increased allotment includes the new funding of $15,000 per campus to add an armed guard, along with an increase of .28 cents for each student attending every day. Read those last four words again… student attending every day. Attendance is a whole other article coming very soon, but when students don't attend, the .28 per student decreases.
Not including the current security in place, the additional armed guards will cost VISD approximately $500,000.
These additional costs do put a bit of a squeeze on our budget. But here's the thing - we're absolutely determined not to let these costs affect the quality of education at our schools. We don't want classroom supplies, extracurricular programs, or our teachers' professional development to take a hit because we're spending more on security.
So how are we going to deal with these extra costs? Well, we're looking into a few things. One big help is grants - that's money from the state or federal government specifically for school safety. In fact, we recently got two grants to increase safety and security on campuses. How cool is that?
We're also going over our whole budget with a fine-tooth comb, looking for ways to save money without cutting corners on the quality of our education. That means carrying out regular checks and audits on our spending to see if there are areas where we could be smarter with our money. With good planning and careful use of resources, we're confident we can keep our finances healthy.
Bringing in armed guards at every campus is a big step, and it does mean spending more money, but nothing is more important to us than making sure our students are safe. At the same time, we're fully aware of the financial side of things and we're committed to handling it in the best way we can. So here's to safe schools and a balanced budget!
Ashley Scott is the executive director of communications and public relations for Victoria ISD.