Missouri State Auditor Nicole Galloway on Tuesday requested Gov. Mike Parson call a special legislative session to implement the recommendations of the state's School Safety Task Force, according to a news release from the state auditor's office.
Galloway is also a Democratic candidate for governor.
Parson, a Republican, created the Missouri School Safety Task Force in March. The group, led by Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe, studied the federal government's school safety report that was commissioned after the 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Florida, that left 17 people dead.
Missouri's task force made recommendations to Parson last month that included that every school should have an armed security officer to protect students, where affordable and approved by districts.
Galloway on Tuesday requested Parson call a special session of the General Assembly during the upcoming veto session to implement the recommendations - specifically, "for the state to fully fund armed and properly trained school resource officers in all Missouri schools," according to the news release.
"It should be a top priority for state government to ensure every school has an experienced, properly trained school resource officer who is prepared to neutralize a threat and respond to emergency situations," she said in the press release. "Currently, Missouri does not fund school resource officer programs in individual school districts. Instead, the cost is completely borne by local school districts or jointly with police and sheriffs' departments. This must change, and you have the power to change it."
Galloway said in the letter that policies to arm teachers are "misguided," and said in the news release from her office that fully funding school resource officers, or SROs, in all schools could be done "using existing state funding, without a tax increase."
The News Tribune attempted to contact Parson's office, but did not immediately receive a response.