The Trump administration's budget unveiled earlier this week contains millions of dollars worth of cuts to programs designed to keep schools safe and combat mental illness.
As Politico pointed out, the fiscal year 2019 budget would slash $25 million from a program that promotes school safety and a $400 million grant program that schools can use to deal with bullying and mental health issues.
The budget would also stop funding the School Emergency Response to Violence program (Project SERV), which received $1 million in federal money last year. Department of Education spokesperson Liz Hill told Politico the fund still has $5.2 million in its bank account, however, which she said would likely be enough to cover its needs through 2019.
Former Obama administration official Scott Sargrad, who worked at the Department of Education, told Politico the programs and grants proposed to be cut "are the kinds of things that can help students, staff and teachers respond and recover" after a school shooting such as the one that occurred in Florida on Wednesday.
It was reported the alleged shooter in this week's massacre, which resulted in 17 deaths, had suffered from mental illness and was even treated in the past.
"He had been undergoing some treatment," Broward County Mayor Beam Furr said. "We can't go into detail on that. I don't know if he was exactly on law enforcement's radar, but it wasn't like there wasn't concern for him. He had not been back to the clinic for over a year, so there's been a time where he was receiving treatment and then stopped."
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