HB 43: School Security Amendments - Utah

Amended 2/17/2026 15:02:240 → Substitute #1 · 2 edits

MINOR

The bill text was reformatted to remove redundant line breaks and section headers, but the substantive policy content remains identical. The School Safety Support Program continues to fund school safety personnel, infrastructure, and emergency protocols, with a distribution formula that allocates specific base amounts to school districts based on enrollment size and a per-student calculation for charter schools. The program is protected from funding reductions due to negative enrollment growth and requires LEAs to submit safety plans and annual reports. Funding for law enforcement training is established through a 10% set-aside of the appropriation.

Scope change

No change to the scope or applicability of the bill; the text represents a formatting cleanup of the same legislative proposal.

TECHNICAL

Removed redundant section headers and line breaks that appeared in the previous version, streamlining the document layout.

Corrected a timestamp at the end of the document from '2-17-26 3:03 PM' to '2-2-26 9:46 AM', indicating a version update.

Amended Excerpts 2/17/2026 15:02:240 → Amended 2/17/2026 15:02:240 · 7 edits

MODERATE

This bill creates a new School Safety Support Program to fund school safety personnel, infrastructure, and emergency protocols. It establishes a specific funding distribution formula that prioritizes charter schools and provides base grants to school districts based on their size. The bill also adds the program to the list of education programs protected from funding reductions due to negative enrollment growth and requires LEAs to submit detailed safety plans and annual reports.

Scope change

The bill expands the scope by creating a new standalone program (Section 53F-2-424) and modifying the existing Public Education Economic Stabilization Restricted Account to allow up to 1% of its funds to be redirected to the new School Safety Support Program if necessary.

FISCAL

Created a new School Safety Support Program with specific funding tiers: $250,000 for districts under 1% enrollment, $175,000 for 1-5% enrollment, $100,000 for over 5% enrollment, plus per-student distributions.

Added a specific allocation rule for charter schools, distributing 20% equally among all charter schools and 80% on a per-student basis.

Authorized the Public Education Economic Stabilization Restricted Account to transfer up to 1% of its funds to the School Safety Support Program if the account exceeds its statutory limit.

PROTECTION

Granted the School Safety Support Program immunity from funding reductions caused by negative enrollment growth.

REQUIREMENT

Mandated that LEAs submit a safety plan and annual report to the School Safety Center to receive funding, including details on coordination with local law enforcement.

Required LEAs to pay law enforcement entities for training school safety personnel and submit reimbursement requests to the state board.

ELIGIBILITY

Added the School Safety Support Program to the list of education programs eligible for annual inflation and enrollment growth adjustments.

Introduced → Amended Excerpts 2/17/2026 15:02:240 · 2 edits

MINOR

The bill was amended to add a pro-rata distribution rule if funds are insufficient to meet the minimum funding tiers for school districts, and to update the required coordination section to reference a different law regarding local law enforcement efforts.

Scope change

The scope of funding distribution was modified to include a fallback mechanism for scenarios where the budget cannot cover all minimum allocations, ensuring no district receives zero funding in such cases.

FISCAL

Added a new provision stating that if appropriated funds are insufficient to fully fund the distribution tiers, the state board must distribute the remaining funds on a pro-rata basis.

REQUIREMENT

Updated the required plan submission to reference Section 53-25-701 instead of Section 53-25-601 for coordination efforts with local law enforcement.

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