By State Senator Page Walley
Thank you to all of you who came out to my eight community meetings I held across the district last week. Your insights and encouragement are so appreciated. This is your Senate Seat and government. I will work diligently to keep you informed and involved throughout the legislative session.
The General Assembly convened for the second year of the 113th General Assembly on January 9. We are going to be taking up hundreds of issues as always. Some of the main ones I will highlight over the next few weeks are the budget, education, crime and safety, health and mental health care. This week’s article with overview education and public safety issues.
EDUCATION
Education continues to be at the forefront of priorities for our General Assembly. Over the last decade, we have invested more than $3.35 billion in public education. We strengthened educational opportunities for students by prioritizing the individual needs of every student through the landmark Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement Act passed in 2021.
To recruit the best and brightest teachers, we raised teacher pay through the Teacher Paycheck Protection Act passed last year. This initiative represents the largest pay increase for teachers in state history and will put Tennessee in the top 10 states with the highest teacher pay in the nation by 2026.
School Safety – In the 2024 legislative session, we will continue to explore ways to strengthen school safety. After the deadly attack at Covenant School in Nashville on March 27, which stole the lives of six individuals, we took a close look at ways to enhance a previously proposed school safety initiative. After much study, we passed the enhanced comprehensive measure to improve school safety standards and protocols at public and private schools. We made a record investment in school safety of $232 million – which provided grants for a School Resource Officer in every public school, as well as grants for public and private schools to make hardware security upgrades.
In 2024, we will examine how the 2023 enhanced school safety measures are working, and look for ways to continue to make improvements. Our General Assembly will consider investments in new technology and communications systems that could enable teachers to immediately alert SROs and local law enforcement to active threats of violence in their classrooms.
CRIME AND PUBLIC SAFETY
A main priority of our General Assembly is to ensure Tennessee is a great place to live, work and raise a family. Protecting Tennessee communities from crime is a major aspect of this creed. Cracking down on crime and improving public safety is an ongoing focus of our General Assembly, but expect it to be an even bigger focus in the 2024 legislative session.
In August, Governor Bill Lee called a special session to address public safety and lawmakers proposed over one hundred bills on the topic. Due to time constraints, ultimately only a handful of bills proposed by Governor Lee for the special session were considered. Many of the bills proposed by lawmakers for the special session will be refiled in the 2024 legislative session. This year, expect lawmakers to hone in even closer on legislation to make Tennessee communities safer by giving law enforcement more tools to remove criminals from the streets, ensuring the criminal justice system gives appropriate sentences to offenders, and enhancing penalties for violent crimes committed with firearms.
In the next few weeks, I will continue to provide updates on important legislative matters happening in Nashville. Thank you for the opportunity to serve you in the Tennessee Senate. Please reach out if I can be of assistance to you at 615-741-2368 or sen.page.walley@capitol.tn.gov.
