Democrats appear to care about school safety only insofar as that it can be used a cudgel to pass more gun control laws when it turns out their gun-free zone signs don't actually stop evildoers. Last Thursday, Democrats in Nevada voted to eviscerate funding for school resource officers and other facility improvements designed around school safety.
Nevada lawmakers at a joint budget meeting Thursday made deep cuts to school safety initiatives after Democrats proposed to reroute marijuana sales tax funds to pay for education.
Democrats on two budget committees threw their support around the cut despite opposition from Republicans, approving decreased funding for school resource officers and facility improvements.
Republican state Sen. Ben Kieckhefer said he was shocked after the panel voted to cut about $30 million from the initiatives. Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak's budget proposed spending a little under $54 million on the school safety efforts over the next biennium through a portion of revenue from a 10% sales tax on retail marijuana.
Democratic legislators expect the state's most-populous counties to fund school safety improvements from their own capital improvement funds. Capital funds can't be used for ongoing costs like school resource officer salaries.
Henderson Democratic Sen. Joyce Woodhouse, who chairs the Senate Finance committee, said Clark and Washoe counties have the opportunity to make facility improvements through capital funds. "The rurals don't particularly have that opportunity, which is why we kept some money in it," she said.
Those claims didn't amuse Republicans.
Kieckhefer criticized Democrats and described the school safety efforts as gutted, saying that providing a safe school environment should be a top priority for lawmakers. "The idea that they just backed out $30 million that was dedicated to doing that is really unfathomable to me," he said.
The move from Democrats also received criticism from Republican Sen. James Settelmeyer. "At a time that the Democrat party is clamoring for more gun control they cut 30.5 million dollars from (school) safety. I do not support making our schools unsafe," he wrote on Twitter.
No one really thinks Democrats want more dead children to push their gun control fantasies, but it would help dispel those conspiracy theories if Democrats didn't do things like this.
