Superintendent Ben Morrisley told attendees that recent school-safety legislation requires armed security in every public school and that implementing that mandate will be costly and operationally complex for Granite School District.

What the law requires and options: Morrisley said the statutes (discussed as HB 84 and HB 40 in the meeting) require armed security coverage but do not mandate a single vendor or model. He said those armed positions could be sworn police officers, contracted security or participants in the state’s Guardian program — a program that provides a stipend for non‑teaching employees (for example janitors or secretaries) who complete training and a mental-health evaluation to carry a weapon.

Limits and costs: Morrisley said the Guardian program applies only for schools with 350 students or fewer; in Granite’s case, he said only about 20 of 87 schools would qualify. He told the meeting the district expects to pay stipends (the superintendent cited a figure of roughly $5,000 per guardian) and estimated about $2.5 million in district costs associated with stipend funding in one slide, while reminding attendees the statewide implementation could cost more than a billion dollars in aggregate. He said the district is still clarifying final vendor costs and the long-term funding picture.

Recruiting and staffing trade-offs: Morrisley said the requirement creates a personnel trade-off: the savings or staff shifts needed to pay for security stipends and contracts could make the district less attractive to prospective teachers. “The type of people who go into education are not the type of people who want to use a gun to protect their children,” he said, stressing concerns that new security duties could affect recruitment.

Response times and SROs: He also noted Granite’s own police resources and partnerships: the district’s internal patrols and allied police agencies yield an average response time of roughly 2 to 2.5 minutes to any district school, he said. For secondary schools the district regularly partners with allied police and the district police department, but the new law’s elementary requirement — dozens of smaller schools — is the implementation challenge.

Ending: The superintendent said the district is promoting the guardian program where feasible and will continue to refine cost estimates; he warned that the safety mandates are an added budget pressure in an already constrained fiscal year.