Indiana Secured School Safety Grant (SSSG): what it funds, how the match works, what Tec-Tel does

1. What the Indiana SSSG is

The Secured School Safety Grant is a dedicated Indiana state fund administered by the Indiana Department of Homeland Security. It provides matching grants for school-safety equipment and improvements, and it covers a broad set of applicants: public school corporations, accredited non-public schools, charter schools, and coalitions of school corporations. Where the federal SVPP grant flows only to public applicants, SSSG opens the door to Indiana's private, parochial, and charter schools too.

It is a recurring program at meaningful scale. The Indiana Secured School Safety Board approved roughly $24 million for 499 locations in 2024 and about $27.1 million for 494 schools in 2025, per public board announcements.

Source: Indiana Department of Homeland Security, Secured School Safety Grant Program (in.gov/dhs); Indiana Secured School Safety Board announcements.

2. What SSSG funds

SSSG funds physical-security equipment and improvements, and a complete application ties every line item to a documented safety need. Camera systems, access control and secured entries, emergency notification, and lighting are core categories, and SSSG has historically funded school resource officers and personnel alongside equipment, which sets it apart from equipment-only grants. Each item below reflects how those categories translate into a real school install.

• Surveillance cameras and video management. Interior and exterior cameras at entrances, hallways, cafeterias, gyms, parking lots, and approach roads, feeding a central video management system. Camera systems are a core SSSG-funded category when the application ties each view to a documented safety need.
• Access control and secured entries. Card readers, electronic locks, secure front-entry vestibules, visitor-management controls at the main entrance, and door-position monitoring. A controlled single point of entry is one of the most common and most-funded SSSG scopes.
• Emergency notification and alerting. Panic and duress buttons, mass-notification systems, automated lockdown triggers, and integrations that route a verified alert to staff and local law enforcement. Indiana has emphasized law-enforcement notification technology in school-safety funding.
• Lighting and physical hardening. Exterior LED lighting at entrances, parking lots, and walkways, plus fencing, gates, and other physical-deterrent hardening. Lighting is frequently underweighted in early applications even though reviewers expect it on a complete plan.
• School resource officers and personnel. SSSG has historically funded school resource officers and related personnel costs alongside equipment, which sets it apart from equipment-only grants. The personnel and equipment categories carry their own rules; confirm the current eligible-cost list against the active IDHS guidance.
• Threat-assessment and training tools. Tools and systems that support threat assessment, anonymous reporting, and staff training. These pair with the equipment scope; a complete application shows how the deployed systems are operated and who responds to an alert.

Source: IDHS Secured School Safety Grant guidance. Allowable categories and any per-category limits can shift cycle to cycle. Confirm against the active IDHS requirements before final budget submission.

3. The award amount and the match

SSSG funds up to $100,000 per school. The defining mechanic is that it is a matching and reimbursement grant. The match is tiered at 25%, 50%, or 100%, set by the district's average daily membership, the total project amount, or what the request covers. Larger districts generally carry a higher match percentage.

The reimbursement structure matters as much as the cap. Schools spend their own funds first, then receive reimbursement for eligible expenditures during the period of performance. The grant does not arrive up front. The school needs the cash to complete the project, and the grant share comes back afterward against documented receipts. That makes accurate scoping and held pricing essential, so the awarded budget matches what the project actually costs.

Source: IDHS Secured School Safety Grant match requirements. Confirm your district's match tier against the active IDHS guidance.

4. Who is eligible

SSSG eligibility is unusually broad for a school-safety grant. Public school corporations are the core applicant, but accredited non-public schools, charter schools, and coalitions of school corporations all apply directly.

• Public school corporations. Indiana public school corporations are the core SSSG applicant. The match tier is set by the corporation’s average daily membership, so larger districts carry a higher match percentage.
• Accredited non-public schools. Accredited non-public schools apply directly for SSSG, which is a meaningful opening: many federal school-safety grants exclude private and parochial schools, but SSSG names them as eligible.
• Charter schools. Indiana charter schools are eligible applicants and apply on the same matching-reimbursement basis as other eligible schools.
• Coalitions of school corporations. Multiple school corporations can apply together as a coalition, which can help smaller districts reach scope and share the application work.

The broad eligibility is the headline. A parochial or independent Indiana school that cannot apply for the federal SVPP grant on its own has a direct, dedicated state funding lane in SSSG. Confirm current eligibility detail and accreditation requirements against the active IDHS guidance before building the application.

5. What Tec-Tel does on an SSSG project

Tec-Tel produces the security-design and documentation a complete SSSG application needs, and installs the system if the award lands. The reimbursement mechanic puts extra weight on accurate scoping and clean documentation, so we build for that from the start.

• School safety assessment. A walking assessment with your facilities lead, administration, and where possible the local law enforcement liaison. We document the existing camera, access, and notification posture, identify gaps against the SSSG categories, and mark up floor plans with photographs and a vulnerability matrix. Output: a written assessment the application can cite directly.
• Category-aligned technology plan. Every line item in the bill of materials references the SSSG category it satisfies and the safety need it addresses: a secure front-entry vestibule under access control, parking-lot LED under lighting, panic and lockdown integration under emergency notification. Reviewers score whether each request maps to an allowable category and a documented need.
• NDAA-aware vendor selection. SSSG is state funding, so the federal 889 rule does not automatically attach. We still default to an NDAA-compliant bill of materials, because covered equipment is a cyber-risk on a school security system and would disqualify any stacked federal funding. Hikvision, Dahua, Hytera, Huawei, ZTE, and Lorex are excluded by default.
• Held pricing for the reimbursement. A scope and pricing letter on Tec-Tel letterhead, valid through the period of performance, so the awarded budget matches the install cost and the reimbursement claim is clean. Because SSSG reimburses against documented expenditures, held pricing and clean documentation are not optional.

What Tec-Tel does not do. We do not write the grant application narrative, we do not sign as the applicant, and we do not replace your district's grant team. Grant writing is the school's job. Our job is the security-design and documentation that scores well alongside their narrative, and the install once the award lands.

6. SSSG next to the federal SVPP grant

Indiana schools have both a state and a federal school-safety funding path, and the strongest plans coordinate them. The distinctions matter when you scope a project.

• SSSG (this program). Indiana DHS, state-funded. Up to $100,000 per school. Matching-reimbursement, tiered 25/50/100% by ADM. Open to public, accredited non-public, and charter schools.
• SVPP. Federal DOJ COPS Office. Public K-12 through government applicants. Up to 75% / $500,000 federal share over three years, 25% match. Carries the NDAA Section 889 rule. See our SVPP grant reference.
• Coordinate the stack. A state grant can sometimes serve as a federal program's local match where both programs allow it, but the SVPP 25% match cannot come from another federal source, and federal and state dollars cannot double-count the same line items.

For the install side of any grant-funded school project, see our grant install playbook, which follows the same award-to-commissioning rhythm. For the fundable visible-weapon-detection scope specifically, see our weapons detection capability page.

Last updated: 2026-06-05. We refresh this page when IDHS updates the SSSG requirements or match tiers, or when the eligible-cost list changes. Program figures cited reflect recent cycles and reset each year; confirm current-cycle caps, match tiers, deadlines, and allowable costs at in.gov/dhs before building an application.