Each year when the Iowa Legislature convenes for the General Assembly, typically the first things decided involve education and public school funding.

This year, there’s an added wrinkle to that process, as Governor Kim Reynolds has proposed the creation of a “School Safety Bureau,” which will be discussed early in this session. State Representative Chris Hagenow, (R) District 19, says he’s unsure what the potential Bureau would entail, but feels anything the Legislature can do to improve school safety has to be looked at. Hagenow points out that when the state extended the sales tax penny for infrastructure last year, they included allowances for districts to use the funds for safety projects like security doors and key card entry. He believes the Bureau could be the next step.

“This year, the Governor has the School Safety Bureau to help provide resources and planning for local school districts to be better prepared to make the adjustments or staff or whatever they need to do to plan ahead. We still want many of these decisions to be made at the local level, because no school district is exactly the same and so we’ll trust the locals to kind of figure that out. But if there are state level resources that we can look to to help, you know I think that’s what that idea is going to be about.”

Hagenow adds, the Bureau may even look into providing federal resources to the districts. However, he points out that everything is mostly hypothetical at this point, as they figure out what the legislation to create the service might look like. To learn more about this and other legislative topics, listen to today’s Perry Fareway Let’s Talk Dallas County program on air and at RaccoonValleyRadio.com.