Arizona uses carryover funds for school safety staff

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(The Center Square) - The Arizona Department of Education plans to use carryover funds to support its school safety program and ensure school resource officer and mental health professional positions are filled for Fiscal Year 2027.

Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne will use approximately $53 million to fund these positions.

The money will support 560 school resource officers and 523 mental health professionals for schools across Arizona, according to the state Department of Education.

Horne told The Center Square this week that he is “emphatic” about ensuring the department can provide money for these positions when requested by schools.

“I’ve been determined that we should never turn down a request for lack of money,” he said.

According to the superintendent, “school safety is of the utmost priority.”

“Well-trained, armed officers are the first line of defense if a maniac attempts to get on campus to harm people," he said.

The state is responding to schools' requests for officer and mental health professional positions to "keep their campuses safe for the upcoming school year," Horne said.

Horne noted he made the decision to use all the saved-up money “all at once rather than spread it over three years.”

The funding for these positions will only last one year, and the state Department of Education is “dependent on the Legislature giving” it money next year, the superintendent explained.

“We’ll lobby hard for that,” Horne noted.

School resource officers and mental health professionals serve in different roles at schools in Arizona.

In addition to acting as security guards, school resource officers develop friendly, positive relationships with students, Horne said.

“Kids develop a whole new attitude toward police. Instead of seeing them as the enemy, they see them as a friend that they can confide in,” he said.

School resource officers can also teach classes, Horne noted.

According to Horne, mental health professionals talk to “troubled” kids.

 ”If a student comes to school because something happens in the family that has them very upset, they can't learn," Horne said. "So they have to have somebody to talk to deal with those feelings so they can learn."