After the tragic incident at the elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, the state of Iowa announced it would use $75 million in federal pandemic relief funds to boost school building security.
Governor Kim Reynolds said the state would be providing $50,000 each to 1,500 schools to address vulnerabilities. Reynolds has also spurned calls for stricter gun control. However, over a year later and two deadly shootings later only then did the money begin to flow out. Even at the time of writing the money remains mostly utilized. This comes from a report done by the Associated Press.
According to the report, there are many contributing factors to the delay one of which comes directly from Government officials both on the local and state levels according to records reviewed by the Associated Press themselves. Meanwhile, the contractors who have been running the program have been receiving millions of dollars. The report goes on to say most of the schools across the state haven't received funding. Even in the city of Perry, a city with a population of 8,000, a school shooting early this year took two lives. A representative from a state agency, the AP went on to reveal, was sent to help officials in Perry complete the application that would grant them $150,000 through Governor Reynolds's program. However, according to the report, this process began over a year ago. Allie Bright, spokesperson for the Iowa Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management which oversees the program, said the following "After the tragedy in Perry, we are continuing to look for opportunities to make the process more efficient and effective."
Iowa Grants Aim to Upgrade School Security, but Spending Raises Questions
Perry's $150,000 grant is a part of the larger $20.6 million the state has been awarded to upgrade hundreds of schools across the state of Iowa. However, the payments for completed work tell a different tale. The state spending data for January shows that the program had sent $865,000 to 16 districts where schools are small as well as rural. The district in Gilbert has recently received a whopping $194,000 which was used for upgrading surveillance cameras, improved entry systems and door controls. Other districts such as the infield Mount Union Community School District announced that it will be cutting back to a four-day school week within the next academic year on top of adding both cameras and panic buttons with the $100,000 they received.
Only time will tell if these new upgrades will benefit these schools or help prevent school shootings in the future but it's clear that before that can happen, the schools would need to receive the funding to do so.
