Latest news with #SchoolFoundationProgram
Yahoo
21-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
'We should all be mindful': LCSD1 considers fiscal impacts of legislative session
CHEYENNE – Laramie County School District 1 officials are keeping a close watch on revenue streams after significant property tax relief and expansion of a school voucher program were signed into law earlier this month. Property taxes directly fund local school districts, with a portion of these taxes flowing into the state's School Foundation Program account. The state pulls money from this account to fund inflationary costs of public school funding through the K-12 public school block grant. With four major property tax relief programs passed last year, and a historical property tax cut signed into law earlier this month, revenue streams into the SFP are expected to take a direct hit. Gov. Mark Gordon recently signed Senate File 69, which provides a 25% property tax exemption on the first $1 million of a single-family home's fair market value. The bill does not have an end date, nor does it include any backfill from the state. Laramie County School District 1 Finance Director Jed Cicarelli said SF 69 will hurt the school district's ability to collect local taxes for funding operations. Decreased local revenue means a heavier reliance on the state for school funding, he said. 'As the local tax collections decrease, the pressure on (the SFP) will increase, because the state will have to make up those entitlement payments,' Cicarelli told the Wyoming Tribune Eagle. 'But it also means there's less revenue coming into that account. … So you're kind of hitting it on both sides of the equation.' House Bill 199, "Steamboat Legacy Scholarship Act," is another indirect factor to the equation. HB 199 expands eligibility for Wyoming's Education Savings Account (ESA) program by removing the income-based requirement for grades K-12 and increasing the per-child, per-year amount from $6,000 to $7,000. This program will cost the state an estimated $44.3 million per year out of the SFP starting in 2026, according to the Legislative Service Office. 'Both pieces of legislation have kind of the same effect on … that increased demand on the School Foundation Account,' Cicarelli said. 'We should all be mindful of how that does impact our local governments.' On a positive note, however, Cicarelli said Wyoming schools still have a state entitlement that ensures adequate funding. And a recent decision from a state district court judge in Laramie County upped the ante on that entitlement, after he found Wyoming has unconstitutionally underfunded its public schools. The decision was released toward the end of the legislative session, and Wyoming lawmakers wasted no time in restoring the full $66.3 million external cost adjustment through a school recalibration House bill. Declining student enrollment Wyoming's largest school district has lost around 1,000 students since the pandemic, and Cicarelli said lower student enrollment reduces state funding to the school district. LCSD1 was originally estimated to receive an extra $9.3 million in funding from the state this year. However, Cicarelli said the decline in student enrollment is not reflected in the $9.3 million cost adjustment, and district enrollment numbers fell by another 129 students last fall. He estimated the lower enrollment would cost the district $3.3 million in state funds. Revenue projections for LCSD1 are also down by $1.4 million, or half a percentage point, Cicarelli told school board members Monday night. He later told the WTE this decline is not a significant concern, and better estimations will be available in the final quarter of the year. The passage of Senate File 73 also dips into school district funding, since it now requires the district's central office to allocate a portion of its revenue to district-approved and state-approved charter schools. 'That money will come out of our funding and go to those (three charter) schools,' Cicarelli said. However, it has not yet been determined what these fiscal impacts will be. Multiple other bills passed by the Legislature were also discussed Monday night, with many of them expected to have some fiscal impact to the school district. Among those was HB 172, a bill that repeals a majority of gun-free zones throughout the state, including in public schools. Cicarelli said the bill could affect costs for insurance, staff training and lock boxes, but the significance of those costs has yet to be determined.
Yahoo
05-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
'We have a spending problem': Wyoming House passes bills to restrict state spending
CHEYENNE — The Wyoming House of Representatives passed two bills Tuesday that would reduce the state's spending, cutting tens of millions of dollars in available education funding per fiscal year. 'Folks, we don't have a revenue problem. We have a spending problem,' said Rep. John Bear, R-Gillette, during the third and final reading of the bills. 'I really have a lot of faith in this body that we are going to keep our spending under control, and we'll be able to withstand this $28 million (reduction in education funding) per year.' Rep. John Bear, R-Gillette (2025) Rep. John Bear, R-Gillette Bear, the Wyoming Freedom Caucus chairman emeritus and current House Appropriations Committee chairman, said it's time for the state to start 'living within its means' by reducing its spending and stashing more money into savings. However, Rep. Karlee Provenza, D-Laramie, countered Bear's optimistic claim about state revenue. 'As of Friday, our total revenues that we've cut in the bills that we've brought so far … is $372,489,500,' Provenza said, which includes proposed property tax cuts. 'We're going to have a revenue problem, a very serious revenue problem.' Rep. Karlee Provenza, D-Laramie Rep. Karlee Provenza, D-Laramie House Bill 270 reduces the state's spending out of the Wyoming Permanent Mineral Trust Fund from 5% to 4.5% of a five-year rolling average market value. A similar spending policy is proposed in HB 271, but out of the Common School Account. Rep. Ken Clouston, R-Gillette, successfully added an amendment to HB 271, so the spending policy would be reduced to 4.75% for the first year and then 4.5% for the following years. Rep. Ken Clouston, R-Gillette (2025) Rep. Ken Clouston, R-Gillette 'This will give us a way to evaluate what this change does,' Clouston said. 'Instead of taking $24 million in the estimate, it would be $12 million from the (School) Foundation (for the 2026 fiscal year).' Bear expressed his support for Clouston's amendment, saying it's a 'reasonable' change to HB 271. 'I've been resistant to most of these amendments to change the trajectory of our spending,' Bear said. 'I am going to be in support of this one. I'm not sure the amendment will last through the process, but I do believe that there's nothing wrong with taking a moment to pause, and that's what this amendment does.' The School Foundation Program funds inflationary costs for public school teacher and non-teacher salaries, classroom supplies and energy costs. The state's Permanent Mineral Trust Fund is a major source of revenue for education, as well. The combined impact of both bills on this account reduces the amount available for spending by around $30 million per fiscal year. Rep. Steve Harshman, R-Casper (2025) Rep. Steve Harshman, R-Casper Rep. Steve Harshman, R-Casper, cautioned lawmakers multiple times that this legislation would 'pull the rug out' from K-12 school districts. The loss in revenue from these bills, he argued, is equal to funding one entire small school district, such as Laramie County School District 2. 'I think the good chair of Committee No. 2 said it's $28 million a year. How many of you know how big a revenue reduction this is? It's the same as spending,' Harshman said on HB 270. 'Revenue reductions are spending increases. It's not $28 million a year, it's over $50 million a year and growing.' The Casper teacher/coach brought amendments, all of which failed, that attempted to slow down the rate of reduced spending that Bear's legislation proposed. On Tuesday, Harshman made an attempt to bring a 'three-year step down' to 4.5% spending out of the permanent mineral trust fund, instead of cutting it to 4.5% right off the bat. 'This would just slow this down over three years. And folks, this bill is effective immediately, so it's going to affect fiscal year '26, which is what we are budgeting on right now,' Harshman said. 'So this cut is going to happen right now.' Both bills passed through the House and will now cross over to the Senate for consideration.
