Republican candidate for governor Allan Fung unveiled a proposal Monday to post a safety officer in every Rhode Island school building, and to pay for that by using money from the General Assembly budget.
During an afternoon news conference, Fung said he will direct the state to split the cost with cities and towns “to fund a school resource officer, or police details, for every single school. That’s a 50/50 split, and up to the cities and towns to take advantage of it. I’ll support enabling legislation to allow retired officers and military police to be part of that force.”
Fung said he would find the money to pay for the state’s share in the legislative budget.
“I examined the past few budgets and found one specific department that is completely out of control with its spending and needs to be reined in, and that’s the General Assembly,” he said in a statement. But it remains unclear if lawmakers would go along with efforts to reduce the legislative budget.
Gov. Gina Raimondo, a Democrat, released her own school safety plan in August. She said she was making $10 million available for “projects that are high-impact, low-cost and shovel ready.”
“I worry about my kids’ safety every time I send them off to school, particularly in light of the tragedies we’ve seen recently,” Raimondo said at the time. “No parent should have to worry that their child’s school doesn’t have the proper safeguards in place, and schools shouldn’t have to wait to make simple upgrades. This funding will help ensure that our school buildings are secure and safe, while remaining welcoming learning environments.”
Fung said his proposal includes a plan to “jump-start school safety upgrades and spread it out equally.”
“We’re not going to have some application and committee to decide who gets the fund and who doesn’t,” he said. “Every school is going to be eligible for $30,000 for safety upgrades, and the schools will be able to say what safety the equipment works best for that school.”
Raimondo has been an enthusiastic supporert of a question on the November ballot that could steer $250 million to improve the condition of Rhode Island’s outdated school buildings. Raimondo’s campaign contends that Fung has opposed the school-construction bond.
According to Fung spokesman Andrew Augustus, Fung has supported the idea of improving the state’s school buildings, Augustus said, but had a concern about whether improvements made via the bond issue would be maintained and be spread evenly around the state.
