CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) - An interim legislative committee has decided to take a new approach to address Wyoming’s looming public education deficit.
The Joint Education Interim Committee on Monday decided to drop three proposed bills that would have cut millions of dollars from education funding.
Two of the bills would have increased class sizes in schools and the third would have changed how the state funded its education system.
Committee chairman Sen. Hank Coe, R-Cody, says there was little support for the proposals, which he said took a narrow approach to solving the financial problem.
Instead, the committee is looking at a more comprehensive and locally driven approach. The panel voted to create a subcommittee to begin working on a proposed bill.
Committee co-chairman Rep. David Northrup, R-Powell, said the proposal would examine a number of issues, including raising money and finding a long-term fix for education funding.
Coe said the plan is for the committee to have the proposal ready for a panel vote Jan. 6 on whether to introduce it in the next state legislative session, which begins Jan. 10.
John Lyttle, superintendent of the Laramie County School District 1 in Cheyenne, said he is cautiously optimistic about the new approach.
“It’s still a question mark for me, and we’ll find out on Jan. 6 what that bill looks like and what effect it might have on us,” Lyttle said.
State budget analysts have said that Wyoming will have an education funding deficit of $1.8 billion by 2022 mainly because of a steep decline in coal revenues that the state has heavily relied on to finance its public education system.
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