Wolf OKs school safety hotline, grants bill
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - Gov. Tom Wolf signed school safety legislation that passed Friday as part of a response spurred by February's high school shooting in Florida that killed 17 people.
Wolf signed the bill shortly after it passed the House and Senate overwhelmingly as part of a broader budget package.
The bill sets up state-administered programs to distribute school safety grants and take anonymous reports of dangerous activities or threats of violence in schools.
It also tasks a new committee under the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency to develop an assessment of school safety and security, and use it to suggest improvements to school districts.
The grant program is to be seeded with $60 million to start.
School districts can apply once a year for a grant for a wide range of purposes, including safety and security assessments, security-related technology, training, counselors, police officers and anti-violence programs.
Each grant must be at least $25,000, but it is limited to 10 percent of the cash in the program account. Up to $7.5 million will be set aside for municipalities, institutions of higher education and community organizations to undertake anti-violence programs.
The anonymous reports program, called "Safe 2 Say" will be administered by the attorney general's office, which would relay reports to police. It is modeled on a similar program Colorado created after 1999's Columbine school shooting.