Committee approves Homeland Security grant to expand active-shooter incident-management training

The joint Fiscal Committee on May 15 approved a Homeland Security grant set-aside to fund a two-phase training program aimed at improving local incident management for active-shooter events and school reunification.

Amy Newberry, director of administration at the Department of Safety, and Rob Buxton, director of the department’s Homeland Security and Emergency Management office, told the committee the project pairs classroom training with a trainer-of-trainers model so local public-safety agencies can sustain the program. Buxton said the effort builds on a prior statewide platform that trained more than 500 public-safety officials and that the new sessions will include substantially filled classes: “The C3 pathways advanced program is a 120 open seats,” Buxton said, and another trainer course will accommodate about 100 participants and roughly 20 trainers.

Buxton described a marketing and equipment element to promote the trainings; he said the department handles social-media outreach internally and will use those platforms to announce registration so courses fill quickly. “We utilize our social media to push our training schedule to make sure that we’re hitting all of the public safety agencies, the school districts, and we fill those classes,” Buxton said. The department expects many programs to reach capacity on the first day of registration.

Representative Rosenwald moved the item; the motion was seconded and adopted by the committee.

Why it matters: Committee members framed the grant as a capacity-building step to raise preparedness at the local level. The trainer-of-trainers approach is intended to make the effort sustainable beyond the grant period.

What’s next: The approved funding will be administered by Homeland Security and Emergency Management and used to schedule the training sessions and procure the equipment listed in the request.