OKLAHOMA CITY ( KFOR ) — Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond sent State Superintendent Walters a scathing legal letter Wednesday, dressing down Walters for the Oklahoma State Department of Education’s more than one-year-long delay in distributing thousands of dollars state legislators gave the department to provide Oklahoma schools with life-saving inhalers.
In his letter to Walters on Wednesday, Drummond made clear, in no uncertain terms, that Walters needs to get schools the inhalers immediately and should never have waited this long to begin with.
Funding for emergency inhalers in schools hits possible roadblock
In July 2023, Oklahoma legislators approved a budget line item that gave OSDE $250,000 to provide public schools in Oklahoma with emergency rescue inhalers, to help prevent children with asthma from dying if they suffer an attack while at school.
In the budget line item providing the funds, legislators specified they would provide the Oklahoma State Department of Education (OSDE) with the funds, and OSDE was to give that money to the McLarty foundation, a non-profit founded in honor of a child who from an asthma attack at school.