Republican leaders signal support for school safety office in wake of Madison school shooting

The state Department of Justice has requested $2.3 million in the state’s next two-year spending plan to fund the Office of School Safety and provide stability for an office that has been largely operating on one-time federal funding.

“I think that’s a good idea to make sure people are trained and make sure that they are ready, and if this tragedy occurs somewhere, that they’re able to deal with it,” Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, told the Wisconsin State Journal Wednesday. “So I’m certainly open to continuing funding for the Office of School Safety. I think that’s a good answer.”

Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, R-Oostburg, told CBS 58 on Tuesday he believes his chamber will also support the state DOJ’s request for funds in the 2025-27 biennial budget, which the agency says will support 14 full-time positions.

State officials, including Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul, have said a lack of ongoing funding could force the office to eliminate its statewide 24-hour confidential threat reporting tip line “Speak Up, Speak Out,” which has taken more than 13,000 tips since the office’s inception six years ago.

Trish Kilpin, director of the Office of School Safety, said a lack of sufficient funding from the Legislature to maintain existing services has created uncertainty within the agency.

“The schools — public and private — are using (Speak Up, Speak Out) and they’re using our programs and our tools, but they are hesitant to do so if they don’t know if our program is going to exist in a year,” Kilpin told the State Journal Tuesday. “To think about those services ending, to me is just unacceptable.”

The Office of School Safety was created by Republican then-Gov. Scott Walker in 2018 in the aftermath of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and provides school safety training, allocates grants to Wisconsin schools and operates Speak Up, Speak Out.

The office was launched using grant funding to “bring model school safety practices to Wisconsin.” In order to maintain the office’s staff of more than a dozen people, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers allocated $1.8 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act funds to fund the office through the end of 2023.

Seeking more dollars from the state, the state DOJ requested $2.2 million in the 2023-25 biennial budget, but the request was rejected by the Republican-controlled budget committee, which instead chose to maintain the office’s existing funding of more than half a million dollars. Officials said at the time those funds were enough to cover about four full-time positions.

State Rep. Mark Born, who co-chairs the state budget committee, told Wisconsin Public Radio at the time the committee “continued funding the Office of School Safety at current levels, to continue performing the core functions of the Office.”

“The committee cannot backfill the expansion of government that occurred in nearly every agency due to one-time federal money, and this office is no different,” Born, R-Beaver Dam, told the outlet in a statement.

In early 2024, Evers signed bipartisan legislation allowing the DOJ to use revenue collected for other programs to continue to fund the office through the end of September 2025.

“To do what we know works to help our schools must be a priority here in Wisconsin, and that priority includes a legislative commitment of state dollars,” Kilpin said.

The Speak Up, Speak Out hotline fielded more than 5,200 tips in the 2023-24 school year — marking a 40% increase from the previous year, according to the office’s most recent annual report. Nearly 1,700 tips were for reported bullying, while 437 tips were considered potentially lifesaving.

All told, Kilpin said the office hotline has fielded 387 tips about planned school attacks since it launched.

“When a child engages in school violence, somebody else typically knows of their plan to do so,” Kilpin said. “So this is somebody reporting to us that a friend or classmate or family member is engaging in some of these warning behaviors and they’re worried they might be planning a school attack.”

Officials said the office tip line did not receive any tips before the shooting at Abundant Life Christian School on Madison’s Far East Side in which a teacher and student were killed and six others wounded. The shooter, Natalie Rupnow, also shot herself.

Two staff members at the school had received behavioral threat assessment and management training from the office, however.

Warning signs

Kilpin said she couldn’t speak to the circumstances surrounding Monday’s shooting but said there are oftentimes warning behaviors leading up to school shootings.

Those can include research of and a fascination with other school shootings, feelings of desperation and despair, forms of aggression and preparation for violence like acquiring a firearm, Kilpin said.

“All of these things are often seen and observed by others,” said Kilpin, who is a National Threat Evaluation and Reporting Office master trainer and a certified threat manager with the Association for Threat Assessment Professionals.

“Often these behaviors are things that are discernable,” she said. “If you have information about youth, that they could be planning an act of violence or they fit some of those warning behaviors … then this needs to be reported because this is not a normal way to think and we have to get them that assistance.”

The office, in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, state DOJ and state Department of Public Instruction, has created an online resource to help individuals better identify warning signs for potential incidents of targeted violence.

In addition to operating the tip line and providing training, Kilpin said another resource provided by the office, which has been in full force since Monday’s shooting at Abundant Life, involves responding to events like school shootings to reduce trauma and help students return to school after a crisis.

“A kid’s trauma story shapes their future trauma story,” Kilpin said. “So we need to make sure we’re handling this well in all schools.”

Gun control measures

The shooting in Madison also reignited calls by some Democrats, including President Joe Biden, for expanded gun control legislation at the state and federal level.

Biden on Monday called for federal “commonsense gun safety laws” such as universal background checks, a national red flag law and a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.

Similar efforts in Wisconsin have largely fallen flat, with Republicans controlling the state Assembly and Senate.

Evers called a special legislative session in 2019 to pass bills creating universal background checks and red flag laws that would allow judges to take guns away from people deemed a danger to others or themselves, but Republicans ignored the request and closed the special session within seconds without debating or taking action on the proposals. A Marquette Law School Poll conducted earlier that year found 80% of Wisconsinites supported expanded background checks — including nearly 70% of gun owners.

Both LeMahieu and Vos said it’s unlikely the Legislature will revisit those restrictions in the next legislative session, which begins in January.

Sen. Kelda Roys, D-Madison, said she’s hopeful Republican leaders follow through with funding the Office of School Safety but said that can’t be the end of the conversation.

“Like with any other problem, the goal is to do whatever you can to try to reduce harm, reduce injury, reduce death, and the Office of School safety is one piece of that,” she said. “But I’m certainly not going to be satisfied if that’s all we get, and I don’t think voters are going to be satisfied.”

Roys said she plans to reintroduce measures like universal background checks, red flag laws and expansions to safe storage laws, which create penalties for adults who leave firearms within reach of a child.

“No one entity can prevent all bad things from happening, but that doesn’t mean you don’t try it all to prevent any bad things from happening and to me that just seems fairly obvious,” Roys said. “We have an epidemic of gun violence in this country that no other country allows and we may never fully understand, and certainly we cannot comprehend how and why this tragedy unfolded on Monday, but we can absolutely do things that are proven to reduce the incidents of gun violence and death.”

Speaking at a WisPolitics.com luncheon Tuesday, state Senate President Mary Felzkowski, R-Tomahawk, said the Legislature will need to have “tough conversations” in the coming session to determine the root causes of school shootings like the one at Abundant Life and determine potential measures such as mental health resources or increased security at schools.

“Those are conversations that we should have in this budget, to help fund ideas so that people can’t walk through the door with no screening,” Felzkowski said. “So I think it’s a little premature to say exactly what happened there, but there needs to be very tough conversations about what’s changed in society to allow this type of violence.”