TORRINGTON – For the last 27 days, during the recent session of the Wyoming Legislature there is one resounding battle cry that echoes down the halls of the temporary capitol at the Johan Business Center: “We can’t tax our way out of this problem and we can’t cut our way out, either.”
Of course, the lamentation is in reference to the shortfall of hundreds of millions of dollars facing Wyoming’s public education system specifically due to the downturn in the state’s coal industry and the deficit will get worse next year as the coal leases bonuses expire unless the legislature finds a way to plug the leak.
However, the House and Senate have taken somewhat different approaches to address the problem and only have 13 days to work out their differences.

School Funding
Senate File 165, introduced by Senator Bill Landen of Casper, will trim the education budget by about $60 million by decreasing the “average daily membership” (ADM), or what school districts receive based on full-time enrollment by two-and-a-half percent beginning in 2018-19 and by another two-and-a-half percent in 2019-20. Savings would also come from freezes in special education and transportation costs and decreasing funds available for activities.
However, the bill makes it clear “the reductions implemented by this act are intended to be temporary  pending a recalibration of the education resource block grant model.” The bill also calls for the creation of a school finance recalibration committee made up of five members of the Senate and five members of the House. Creation of the committee would happen no later than. March 15, 2017 with committee recommendations due to the legislature by Jan. 31, 2018.

SF 165 passed the Senate and is on the way to the House
The Senate is barred from proposing legislation that would raise revenues, but that is one component of the comprehensive, and sure to be controversial, House Bill 236. The bill calls for “providing for moratoria on new alternative schools and purchases and leases of school buses and other restrictions on education expenditures,” but it also calls for the transfer of rainy day account funds to education and “providing additional revenue for education through a contingent sales and use tax increase.”
Specifically, the rainy day savings account would transfer $100 million into the public school foundation program account on June 30 of each fiscal year, until such time the rainy day fund would dip below $500 million. At that point, a half cent state sales tax would go into effect until the rainy day fund increases to over $500 million. Currently there is over $1 billion in the fund.
HB 236 also calls for establishing a joint select committee on education funding that would include 16 members; two each from the House and Senate education committees, two each from the House and Senate appropriations committees, two each from the House and Senate revenue committees, and two at-large members from each of the House and the Senate.
HB 236 passed the House and is on its way to the Senate for consideration.
Though most legislators say they will come to some type of agreement before the end of the 2017 session on March 3, there is a real possibility that each chamber of the legislature rejects the other chambers proposal, leaving public education funding in a very dark hole.

Other bills still active
The House and Senate general appropriations bills are on their way to the other chamber for consideration. Both bills reduce general fund spending by over $275 million and reduce the number of full-time state employees by 158.
House Bill 19 that requires all internet retailers to collect Wyoming sales tax has been introduced to the Senate and looks like it has the support to become law.
A change to teacher accountability has made its way though the house and is on its way to the Senate. House Bill 37 would give the responsibility for teacher evaluations to local school districts rather than standards set by the department of education.
House Bill 200 would repeal the penalty imposed for failing to pay monies due to the beef council.
From the Senate chamber, Senate File 132, which would appropriate $2.5 million to establish Gov. Mat Mead’s “Economically Needed Diversity Options for Wyoming” program. Though ENDOW would have broad objectives, its main goal is to “establish a twenty year comprehensive and coordinated economic diversification strategy to encourage the expansion and diversification of Wyoming’s existing energy and industrial sectors and  to stimulate new and emerging industries to create private sector jobs and encourage business development, entrepreneurship and innovation.”
And the House has received Senate File 24 for consideration that would incentivize the film industry to use sets in Wyoming by reimbursing up to 15 percent of the production company’s qualified expenses if at least $200,000 in qualified expenditures are made in the state while filming. Maybe Netflix will move the production of Longmire to the state in which the story is set, rather than New Mexico.