Legislators grapple again with education funding
Legislators grapple again with education funding
By David Louis
Rawlins Times
Via Wyoming News Exchange
RAWLINS — As Wyoming lawmakers work through the current general session they will be faced with a reoccurring monkey on their back — what to do about the state’s education funding model.
For career legislators such as Senate Vice President, Sen. Larry Hicks R-Baggs, who has held office since 2011, the education system is arguably broken.
His frustrations is that many of his fellow senators and House of Representative members continually kick the can down the road in a “failed” attempt to explore “meaningful” changes year after year.
It’s gotten so bad, Hicks said, legislators are going to have to “really” start listening before the damage is irreversible, “if we are not there already,” he added.
“COVID has changed everything,” Hicks said. “It’s not just the virus itself, but businesses shutting down and the loss of our primary economic driver — energy production — which is our number one revenue source.”
With the worldwide economy crashing and the decline in oil prices Wyoming is looking at the largest structural deficit in the history of the state, he added.
The double whammy of COVID’s impact on global economies and its crippling effects on the oil patch have been devastating, Hicks added.
“We got both sides of it. From the health impacts at the local level and the drop in oil prices,” Hicks said. “We’ve just been pounded.”
Along with continued efforts to deploy the federal CARES Act funding and where it can do the most good, the biggest thing to grapple with is Wyoming’s K-12 education funding model, according to Hicks.
Currently the K-12 budget is $3.2 billion and the general fund budget is $2.5 billion.
“Everything we cut out of every agency, every program — mental health, substance abuse treatment, tax exemptions for veterans, home health care for seniors — all that money we cut just flows right into K-12 education,” Hicks said. “The state of Wyoming is going to have to come to grips with the kind of Cadillac education system that we’ve built.”
What it comes down to, Hicks said, is whether people will to move back a little bit on education spending or whether they want “massive” tax increases to pay the bills.
“Right now, we’ve literately gone in and made cuts to the biggest program outside of education, which is at the Department of Health,” Hicks said. “We’re talking about senior citizen disability waivers and programs for low-income families. We’ve made cuts to so many programs and in some cases eliminated them all together at the expense of our K-12 education.”
The state committee on the calibration of education funding recently suggested making $100 million in cuts, which represents 6% of the budget, but some legislators are advocating a spare the rod and spoil the child approach by raising taxes by more than $300 million annually.
“It’s going to be an interesting time in Wyoming,” Hick said. “We’ll either maintain our Cadillac education system with some of the highest taxes in the region to support it or we’re not,” he added. “Our education system is sucking everything else out of state government. People will have to make a decision about what they want. This train has been on this track for a long time and we knew this day was coming.”
COVID-19 and the collapse in oil prices puts Wyoming in a crisis mode, Hicks said.
“Within three years our savings account is gone. Then you will be looking at the choice of a $1 billion reduction in services or $1 billion in new taxes in a state that generates about $6 billion each year,” he said.
“The frustrating thing for me that we’ve seen this coming. We’ve argued about it with our colleagues on the house side, but the speaker and the majority of its members during the past four years have dug in their heals to fund education at all cost,” Hicks said.
At the currently rate, the state will spend $1.6 billion over a five year period on education very shortly.
Hicks and other lawmakers argue they can maintain a quality classroom experience along with maintaining a competitive teacher salary if the right steps are taken. The wrinkle in the system, he said, is that administrators who make 23% higher than the regional average across six surrounding states.
“Where we really bust the budget is on school administration, activities and (advisors),” Hicks said. “We also pay our coaches higher than anybody in the region. People are going to have to decide where we want to be top-heavy.”
According to school district data, Carbon County School District #1 pays its teachers between $45,000 and $71,500 annually depending on years of service and additional higher education training.
The district pays principals between $74,409 and $112,402, school administration/directors $79,400 and $113,405 and depending on the weeks of activity, athletic coaches and academic advisors — such as Skills USA, student council, yearbook, cheerleading, band and chorus — $3,114 and $7,393 added annually to their base pay.
Carbon County School District No. 2 pays its teachers between $45,000 and $66,050 annually, principals $71,900 and $97,200 administration/directors $68,000 and $93,300, and athletic coaches and academic advisors $1,620 and $8,100 added annually to their base pay.
Pay for it now or pay for it later, Hicks said.
“We are going to find out the answers to all the fiscal questions in the next three years,” he added.