OSDE makes more than a dozen budget requests to lawmakers, including $3 million for Bibles.

OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) – The Senate Appropriations Committee heard more than a dozen budget requests from the Oklahoma State Department of Education on Tuesday.

Among those requests was adding an additional $1.5 million to the maternity leave revolving fund. OSDE said the extra funding was due to the number of individuals who were taking advantage of maternity leave.

“I believe that districts are using it even as a recruiting effort,” said Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters. “We believe that it’s going to continue to grow.”

Budget requests also consisted of $500,000 to train teachers and school staff who wanted to carry a firearm. The money would also be earmarked for signage across campuses alerting visitors that teachers were armed.

OSDE requested $5 million to make IT improvements so it can modernize its systems.

At the forefront once again was the request for the use of taxpayer dollars to fund Bibles in schools. OSDE asked for $3 million to purchase roughly 55,000 King James Version Bibles for all of its 5th through 12th grade classrooms.

“I think that’s by far the most expensive that it would be,” said Walters.

Walters was asked by lawmakers if any groups or organizations have reached out offering to give the state the Bibles for free.

“There have been discussions around how many could be provided for free so that has been an ongoing discussion,” said Walters. “We tried to pause those before any decisions is made of a future budgetary decision there.”

“If you would exhaust those resources before we consider spending $3 million,” said Sen. Dave Rader, R-Tulsa. “We might could take the $3 million elsewhere if someone’s willing to make those available to us at no cost.”