There’s no free lunch
The dollar figure for providing the controversial free school meal program to every K-12 student in the state so closely mirrors what it would cost to provide a competent armed officer at every school that it becomes almost impossible not to consider a trade.
In 2023, the Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) led Minnesota Legislature passed the Universal School Meal Program, giving free breakfast and lunch to all 870,000 K-12 students in the state. The program went into place, despite any hard evidence of a true need. Several existing programs already provided free meals for students in need. Nonetheless, Minnesota taxpayers were put on the hook for an estimated $185 million/year.
Of course, in the first year of the program it exceeded the estimated budget by $80 million, bringing the 2024 expenditure to $267 million. To compound the issue, anecdotal stories began surfacing of the massive number of meals that were being wasted each day – one story suggesting that in order to get a chocolate milk a student needed to get a full meal too. Examples like this have led to allegations of massive waste in the program. Whether these stories are fully grounded in truth, or not, the vast majority of Minnesota students did not need the state to provide free breakfast and lunch. Perhaps that money could be better spent?
Given recent calls for action following the Annunciation School shooting in Minneapolis, it begs the question, how much would it cost to provide a competent, armed officer at every K-12 school in Minnesota? The answer is intriguing.
According to the Minnesota Department of Education, there are approximately 2,800 public and private K-12 schools in Minnesota. Using a school calendar of 170 days and accounting for a 12-hour building operation day, the total number of hours needing armed officer coverage is about 5,712,000.
Districts could easily hire retired or off duty police officers, as a single purposed, dedicated, armed deterrent to any hostile threat (this would be in addition to existing School Resource Officers (SRO’s) who would maintain their student focused mission).
At a respectable $45/hour, this resource would cost the state just over $257 million annually. Yes, this is a ballpark figure that doesn’t account for liability insurance, training, and equipment costs, etc. But it is so close to the amount we currently toss at “free meals” for kids who don’t need them, that the idea should at least be on the table as policy makers debate ways to prevent school shootings.
Hardening our schools with dedicated armed officers may be more achievable than we thought.
