The Indiana Secured School Safety Board (the Board) today approved the distribution of more than $24 million to support school safety initiatives in all 92 counties.
The Board voted unanimously to split more than $24 million across 499 schools/districts, which represent a record-number of schools impacted through the Secured School Safety Grant Program in a single year. To date, $187 million in state funding has been dedicated to the matching grant program since it was created in 2013.
“Since this program began, the focus has been on listening to the needs of school districts while partnering with them to invest in the safety of Hoosier schools,” said Gov. Eric J. Holcomb. “Indiana continues to be a leader in school safety resources made available. With the help of the General Assembly, Indiana continues to step up to support students and staff.”
The amount of funding dedicated to the program for 2025-2026 will be determined in the next legislative session. However, the program has funded school safety initiatives at record levels for the four previous years. Last year, 474 schools split an allocation of $29.8 million, which included deobligated funds from previous grant cycle years that was added to the $25 million allocated to the program by the Indiana General Assembly.
This year, the total amount of eligible funding requests exceeded the amount of funding for the program. Priority was given to first-time applicant schools to the SSSG Program, which were fully funded for their top priority requests. Charter school groups were capped at $100,000 in funding for all schools in the group. Remaining schools that apply to the fund regularly were funded at 81% for their top priority items. Applicants to the program rank the priority of items to help the Board better understand the greatest need for school districts.
As in previous years, most school applicants prioritized the addition of school resource officers, which accounted for nearly $17 million of all requests. The seven requests for firearms training were granted as a priority, as mandated by recent legislation.
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| “We’re proud to see hundreds of schools apply to take advantage of this important program to improve school safety,” said Rusty Goodpaster, director of the SSSG Program. “Although the Board had to make some difficult funding decisions based on eligible funding, this year still represents a significant impact for schools across the state and prioritizes the protection of staff and students.”
The Secured School Fund is administered by the Indiana Department of Homeland Security. A complete breakdown of recipient schools and the total amount of their awards can be found on Sept. 1 on the data page of the IDHS website (under the Grants header in “Selected Annual Data”). For security reasons, the use of those funds by individual schools is not publicly available. The SSSG issues matching grants for eligible items and then schools match those funds at a certain level, either 25 percent, 50 percent or 100 percent. The match requirement is based on average daily membership of the school district, the total amount of the project or what the request covers. Eligible items in the grant include funding for school resource officers (SROs) and law enforcement officers in schools; equipment and technology; active event warning systems (no matching requirement); firearms training for teachers and staff that choose to allow guns on school property; threat assessments and to implement a student and parent support services program. The Indiana School Safety Hub also provides schools with a wealth of resources, training opportunities and other information designed to give schools the tools they need to keep students and staff safe. |