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Committee approves grant program to help districts fund school crossing guards
Summary
Senate File 123, a competitive grant program to help school districts fund crossing‑guard programs, advanced out of the Senate Education Committee Jan. 30 by a unanimous vote.
The Senate Education Committee unanimously advanced Senate File 123 on Jan. 30, a bill to create competitive grants to help school districts train and equip crossing guards and, where appropriate, pay wages for employees who perform crossing‑guard duties.
Sponsor Senator Cheryl Brennan described the bill as a response to student safety concerns in her district after a fatality in a crosswalk. The bill allows districts to apply to the Department of Education for grants to support training, volunteer education, wages for employees, equipment and reporting. The bill sets a maximum grant of $10,000 per school per year and requires districts that receive awards to report expenditure to the Department of Education no later than Aug. 1 of each school year.
Section 2 of the bill requests an appropriation of $4,950,000 from the public school foundation program account and directs that no more than $1,650,000 be expended in each year. Committee witnesses from the Wyoming School Boards Association and the Wyoming Association of School Administrators supported the measure, citing local safety gaps and limited law‑enforcement capacity in some communities.
Committee members questioned funding mechanics and whether the appropriation should be structured annually rather than as a larger multi‑year lump sum; the Department of Education said it would provide further detail in later deliberations. The bill passed the committee by a unanimous vote and will go to the Senate floor.
Note on drafting: The bill text in the committee discussion contains a drafting inconsistency about dates (it lists "July 1, 2025 through June 30, 2022"), which appears to be a clerical error in the printed draft and should be clarified in subsequent drafting steps.
Action: Committee recommendation, "do pass" (5–0)
Vote: Committee roll-call on SF123 — 5 ayes, 0 noes.
Sources: Committee hearing transcript, Jan. 30, 2025; testimony from education associations and district leaders.
