State commits $100M in wake of Uvalde
Texas leaders directed more than $100 million to school safety initiatives and mental health services Tuesday, about a month after a teenage gunman killed 19 children and two teachers at a Uvalde elementary school.
The funds include $50 million for bulletproof shields for school police officers and $17 million for school districts to purchase silent panic alarms. The allocation marks legislators’ most direct response to the Uvalde shooting yet, as Gov. Greg Abbott has so far declined to call a special legislative session that would immediately bring lawmakers back to Austin to discuss appropriations and other legislative responses.
The Legislature is not scheduled to reconvene until January, when students will already be about halfway through the next academic year.
Texas’ Republican leaders have focused heavily on mental health and school security after the massacre, rejecting calls from the left to restrict firearm access. The Uvalde shooter used an AR-15-style weapon, purchased just days after his 18th birthday, and Democrats have been advocating for expanded background checks and limits on who can buy assault-style rifles.
“Funding these much-needed initiatives marks the first of many steps that we will take at the Legislature to respond to the horrific events in Uvalde and prevent another tragedy like this from happening again,” said House Speaker Dade Phelan, who had suggested most of the appropriations earlier this month. “Important policy discussions and debates remain on how the Legislature will tackle issues such as school safety, mental health, firearm
safety and more, but this important first step will ensure that action is taken and implemented before school starts again in August.”
The package will direct nearly $6 million to expand the Texas Child Health Access Through Telemedicine program, or TCHATT, which offers telehealth services to public school students who need mental health treatment. Another roughly $6 million will fund an expansion of specialty therapy across the state, providing more community-based treatment for juvenile offenders and helping young people experiencing their first episode of psychosis.
Lawmakers are also giving up to $5 million to the Hill Country Mental Health & Developmental Disabilities Center, which will evaluate mental health services in Uvalde and provide recommendations to lawmakers based on its findings.
The rest of the funding will support new security measures, including $10 million for more law enforcement officials to take active shooter training. The funds were allocated through an emergency budget appropriation, which redistributes resources from existing pools.
Almost all of the money will come from a surplus in the Foundation School Program, the main source of funding for Texas schools. The allocations will last through August 2023.
Children’s advocates welcomed the announcement Tuesday but stressed that lawmakers must continue supporting mental health resources when the Legislature convenes in January.
“With the vast majority of this new funding going towards security measures, it looks like state leaders are making a down payment on addressing the children’s mental challenges that escalated over the last decade and laying the groundwork to make mental health a bigger priority during the next legislative session,” said Josette Saxton, the director of mental health policy for the nonprofit Texans Care for Children. “We will certainly be pushing the Legislature to close the remaining gaps in comprehensive children’s mental health services next session.”