Gov. Cooper wants to spend $130M on school safety, youth mental health

RALEIGH (WTVD) -- On Thursday, Governor Roy Cooper announced that he wants to spend $130 million dollars to help keep students and school personnel safe in North Carolina.

"We cannot afford to wait on Washington to act on school safety, we need to keep guns out of hands and off of our school campuses, and we have to provide our schools with funding to help keep our kids safe," Cooper said in a news conference Thursday.

Cooper's $130 million budget breakdown

• $40 million for 500 additional school personnel to help aid in mental health

• $65 million to improve safety at schools, colleges, and universities (system upgrages, improved door lock, newer safety technology)

• $10 million for more school resource officers

• $500,000 to update and create digital school risk mangement plan

This is the governor's latest act to help curb gun violence.

In March, he announced that he wants to strengthen the background check system and raise the legal age of sale of assault weapons to age 21.

READ MORE: Gov. Cooper wants to raise legal age of 'assault weapon' sales to 21