Sponsors (3)
Excludes pay to retired officers serving as armed school resource officers from federal gross income and employment-wage definitions, and adds SROs to eligible public safety officers for death benefits.
The bill financially incentivizes retired officers to serve as armed school resource officers and secures survivor benefits for SROs, improving pay and family protections for a small group of public-safety workers while shifting costs onto federal finances and raising concerns about more armed officers in schools and reduced payroll-taxed retirement contributions.
Retired law-enforcement officers employed as qualified armed SROs will have that compensation excluded from federal income and payroll taxation, increasing their take-home pay and lowering employer payroll/withholding costs for those hires.
Retired officers' higher net pay and the lower cost to employers may improve recruitment and retention of retired officers into school resource officer roles, potentially increasing on-site law enforcement presence in schools.
Families and survivors of SROs: law enforcement officers serving as SROs will be explicitly eligible for federal public safety officers' death benefits, giving immediate financial support and stability to survivors after a line-of-duty death.
Students and school communities: expanding financial incentives and explicit survivor benefit coverage may encourage more deployment of armed officers in schools, with potential negative effects on school climate, civil liberties, and student experience.
Taxpayers and federal finances: excluding SRO pay from taxation and expanding survivor benefits will increase federal costs (lost revenue and higher benefit outlays), which could raise deficits or force reallocations of spending unless offsets are provided.
Workers and future beneficiaries: excluding SRO pay from payroll taxes reduces Social Security and Medicare contributions tied to that compensation, potentially lowering future benefits for affected workers and reducing trust fund receipts.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Official title: To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide for an exclusion from gross income for compensation of certain school resource officers and the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 to make school resource officers eligible for public safety officer death benefits.
Introduced June 27, 2025 by Randy Weber · Last progress June 27, 2025
Excludes pay received by retired peace officers working as armed school resource officers from individual gross income and from the definition of wages for employment taxes, and makes school resource officers eligible for federal public safety officers' death benefits. The tax exclusion applies to services performed after enactment; the death-benefits change expands the statutory definition of covered public safety officers to expressly include school resource officers.