OSDE attempts to deprive schools of rollover funds for safety, security enhancements despite previously promising them
OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) — The Oklahoma State Department of Education is attempting to take away certain funds the state legislature allotted school districts to make security enhancements after the Uvalde shooting, even though OSDE’s website said districts would be able to keep the money—until lawmakers began asking questions.
Now, numerous Republican lawmakers are calling for State Superintendent Ryan Walters to be held accountable, with at least one of them calling for Walters to be impeached for the first time.
In 2023, Oklahoma legislators overwhelmingly passed House Bill 2904. The bill provided Oklahoma schools with $150 million to make security enhancements to campuses and hire school resource officers in the wake of the 2022 shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, which left 21 people dead.
HB2094 created a three year revolving fund, in which every school district in the state would receive approximately $96,000 per year for three years to make the improvements.
Several superintendents from mostly rural districts across Oklahoma told News 4 it was their understanding that they would be allowed to roll over any unused funds from one year to the next.
They told News 4 they planned to let their 'Year One' funds roll over to the following years until they saved enough to pay for improvements that would cost more than $96,000.
But now, those superintendents—who spoke to News 4 anonymously—say the Oklahoma State Department of Education (OSDE) denied them access to leftover 'Year One' funds they had not yet spent.
The superintendents say, without the leftover Year One funds available, they will have to cut the security improvements they planned to make, including additional school resource officers, security entry vestibules, bulletproof windows, and more.
OSDE’s lawyers are now telling lawmakers they believe HB2904 did not allow for funds to rollover each year.
This bill’s authors say that is not, and never was the case.
Several republican lawmakers spoke out to News 4 about the issue, and how they feel about Walters’ role in it all.
“It gets me upset,” State Rep. Eddy Dempsey (R-Valliant) said.
“It just seems like it's getting untenable at this point,” State Sen. Adam Pugh (R-Edmond) said.
“[Walters] answers to the legislature,” State Representative Mark McBride (R-Moore) said. “And it's time to stop.”
Several years ago, state legislators did a rare thing. Lawmakers from both parties worked together to pass HB2904.
It passed both houses with only one ‘no’ vote.
OSDE was the agency in charge of distributing the money HB2904 allotted school districts through its revolving fund.
OSDE even created a page on its website with information about the revolving fund, including a section of “Frequently Asked Questions” OSDE had received from school districts about the program.
News 4 found an archive of the webpage from March 2024, in which FAQ section included the following sentences:
“Is rollover allowable?
Yes, unspent monies from previous years may be rolled over to future years. However, all monies must be encumbered by the end of year three.”
The superintendents News 4 spoke with said that was one of many communications they had received from OSDE since HB 2904 passed indicating OSDE would allow districts to roll over funds.
It’s why they said they budgeted certain improvements to take place once their districts had accrued all three years’ worth of funds.
But each of them said they noticed something odd when they went to check their accounts holding their leftover Year One funds a few weeks ago: they all showed a $0 balance.
They were not given any reasons as to why.
They tell News 4 they tried numerous times to reach out to OSDE for an explanation, but OSDE never responded.
The superintendents say their next step was to call Sen. Pugh, who chairs the Oklahoma Senate’s education committee.
“I've probably gotten a lot of the same calls that you have,” Pugh told News 4 in reference to News 4’s conversations with the superintendents.
Pugh told News 4, after hearing from the superintendents, he too, was confused as to why OSDE had not allowed their Year One funds to roll over.
“So I made a request about three weeks ago from to the State Department, from my office as the chair of education, to really get clarification,” Pugh said.
But nobody at OSDE returned his calls either.
However, around the same time Pugh began reaching out to OSDE, they updated that webpage containing those FAQs about the revolving fund.
As of a July 29 update, the question “is rollover allowable” and response from OSDE indicating rollover would be allowable had been removed from the webpage, with no indication as to why.
“It previously stated on their page that they had three years to complete the project and get the money,” Rep. McBride said. “Now, it's kind of funny that you show me that the current page does not say that. So it's a shell game.”
Finally on Wednesday, Pugh says he heard from someone at OSDE
“I received a memo yesterday from the general counsel at the State Department,” Pugh said.
In that memo, obtained by News 4, OSDE’s General Counsel Michael Beason argued the HB2904—a bill Pugh and his fellow legislators wrote and passed—prohibited schools from rolling over unused funds from year to year.
Pugh says, that is not accurate at all.
“The legislature was very clear two years ago when we passed that,” Pugh said. “Everybody agreed that this was a great way for us to allocate some resources to school districts to and also to allow some flexibility in how they wanted to do it. School districts have chosen to augment their school resource officers with these dollars. But some schools that maybe already had a robust SRO program in place wanted to do some technology upgrades or even some infrastructure upgrades to their school buildings. And we want to maintain that flexibility to do that. And the fact that now State Department of Education, unilaterally, without any input from the legislature, is making the decision that schools can't do that, frankly, I won't stand for it.”
Pugh said Walters and OSDE are overstepping their authority, and trying to encroach on power reserved only for legislators.
“[OSDE’s] job is to implement and execute the laws that we pass,” he said. “And they also don't have the authority to sweep revolving funds. A revolving fund is created for a specific legislative purpose. And so I've made it very clear that that's counter to legislative intent, that they don't have that authority. If there are some particulars in the law that need to be changed, just to add some more clarity, that’s fine. I am happy to do that. That has not been asked of me. Instead, just the guidance was kind of singularly revised from the State Department. And now it's got a lot of school districts frustrated and we're just back in the cycle again of kind of causing a lot more work for school districts and the legislature as opposed to being our partner and working with us.”
Pugh said he is not the only legislator who has attempted to reach out to OSDE to fix the issue, only to get no response, or pushback.
“We've got our own legal opinions from the finance attorneys,” Pugh said. “I've engaged House leadership. So, both the appropriations chair in the Senate, the appropriations chair in the House of Representatives are engaged. I've also been working with Secretary of Education Nellie Sanders, who's now engaged in this. And is very aware of the situation. And she has also communicated directly with the State Department, wanting guidance, wanting to know why legal counsel is making these different interpretations of law. She has not received an answer yet. If we're going to talk about funding, right? I've felt like the only authority I have as a senator is making statutes and funding. And if they don't have a functioning organization that is willing to be in partnership with the legislature, then we're going to talk about withholding resources. That's really the only way I feel like we can get the attention of the State Department of Education.”
Pugh says it’s all part of a concerning, growing trend of defiance he’s noticed from OSDE lately.
“I always want to be able to work together. But again, it seems to be coming untenable or the State Department of Education just seems to do what they want,” he said. “They do not communicate with the legislature at all. So I don't I, I don't hear anything until it's a problem. I ask questions or I ask for information. We don't get responses. It's not prompt. It's not timely if we get responses at all.”
It’s a trend that Rep. Dempsey, a Republican from deeply conservative McCurtain County, says he, too, cannot ignore.
“I mean, how are you supposed to trust somebody if they do stuff like that,” Dempsey said. “I mean, that it's all about trust up here in the capital… We're the ones that make the law.”
He told News 4, the news that OSDE would try to take back funds they previously told rural schools in his district they could have—offends him as someone who cares deeply about his local schools.
“It hurts me,” Dempsey said. “I mean, because like I said, my little schools… what that little bit of money they were going to get [in year one], I still couldn't get what they needed. But if I saved up their money over three years, then they could get a better security system, everything. So, I mean, that's where I would've said, yeah, we might not use it this year, but we got plans for it in the future and stuff just so we just get it up enough so we can buy.”
Dempsey wonders, what if—God forbid—something were to happen at one of those schools that lost their security improvement funding?
“I just hope somebody can go to sleep that night,” Dempsey said.
That’s a thought that has McBride saying something he has never said before.
“I hate to use the word impeachment,” McBride said. “But I think we're getting to that point.”
News 4 reached out to OSDE spokesperson Dan Isett with the following questions:
- Why is SDE trying to claw back these funds?
- Why was the following removed from the FAQ section on OSDE’s web page about the revolving fund late last month:
“Is rollover allowable?
Yes, unspent monies from previous years may be rolled over to future years. However, all monies must be encumbered by the end of year three.”
- Why is SDE going back on its previously publicly published word on this policy?
- Knowing that clawing back these funds from districts could put students’ safety at risk, why is SDE attempting to do so?
Isett did not respond to the questions, but instead sent News 4 the following statement:
There was no clear intent for rollover expressed by the Legislature. In fact, an amendment that provided for such a rollover failed and OSDE is bound to follow the law as written.
Dan Isett, Oklahoma State Department of Education spokesperson
PROGRAMMING NOTE: On Friday, News 4 will have a deeper report detailing Rep. McBride’s calls for Walters to be impeached, and other Republicans calls for Walters to be held accountable.