The June 2022 announcement was addressed to parents horrified by the massacre at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas: Iowa would spend $75 million in federal pandemic relief funds to improve school building security. Citing an urgent need to act after Uvalde and shootings outside a high school and a church in Iowa, Gov. Kim Reynolds said the state would award up to $50,000 each to 1,500 schools to fix vulnerabilities. More than 19 months and two deadly Iowa school shootings later, the money only recently started to trickle out, with the vast majority still unspent.