Education in budget crisis

Posted 1/12/17

For Powell, Superintendent Kevin Mitchell has a request: Let local school district leaders decide how to make those cuts.

“You guys make a decision on how much money you need — make that into a percent cut or something — and then we’ll …

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Education in budget crisis

Posted

Lawmakers work on $400 million deficit

As lawmakers grapple with how to fund K-12 education in Wyoming — which faces a roughly $400 million annual shortfall — budget cuts are inevitable.

For Powell, Superintendent Kevin Mitchell has a request: Let local school district leaders decide how to make those cuts.

“You guys make a decision on how much money you need — make that into a percent cut or something — and then we’ll deal with how we’re going to run the school district,” Mitchell told local legislators at a recent meeting.

With the 2017 legislative session underway, state lawmakers will consider various ways to trim K-12 funding. In recent weeks, legislators have discussed increasing class sizes, cutting transportation money, capping special education funding, decreasing the number of days teachers work, consolidating school districts, reducing professional development days and eliminating the instructional facilitator program, in addition to other options.

Mitchell asked legislators not to mess with the state education funding model.

Legislators have discussed reducing funding for school activities.

“It’s about 1 percent of the budget,” Mitchell said. “So, you’re not going to gain a whole bunch by telling someone they can’t have a football team.”

“We can make decisions there, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not going to solve this crisis,” he continued. “How deep you cut is how many people are going to lose their jobs in Wyoming. Everything else added up doesn’t even come close to the salaries and benefits and insurance, those types of things.”

Exactly what cuts look like will be different for every school district in the state, he said.

He added that at some point, cuts will directly affect students, whether it’s the loss of a para-educator, losing a program or increasing class sizes.

“When 80 to 85 percent of your budget is people, it affects the classroom,” said Rep. David Northrup, R-Powell. “There’s nothing you can do that doesn’t affect the classroom.”

Northrup, who chairs the House Education Committee, said school districts are probably looking at 3 percent in cuts in coming years.

“Three percent will be a different challenge to us,” Mitchell said. “We can do it — we’ll do anything we have to do. It’s just the way it is.”

Park County School District No. 1 has been spared from recent budget reductions.

“We haven’t had budget cuts — ours has been going up since enrollment is going up,” said school board chairman Greg Borcher, calling Powell “very fortunate.”

That hasn’t been the case for many districts in Wyoming, including Park County School District No. 6 in Cody.

“Every year, we’re paying the cost of decreasing enrollment,” said Stefanie Bell, Cody school board treasurer, at a late December meeting with lawmakers. “We understand the cuts have to be made — but that’s in addition to the $350,000 that we’ve been cutting every year.”

‘Five-pronged attack’

In the current biennial budget, lawmakers are using savings from previous years to fund K-12 education in Wyoming.

“What we’re looking at is, in the ’17-18 school year — there’s a piggy bank of $568 million, and we’re going to break that piggy bank and leave $25 million left to fund that school year,” Northrup said.

Wyoming faces a $360 million shortfall in 2019-20 and $400 million in 2012-22 to fund daily operations for schools across the state. Those deficits do not include shortfalls for school construction or maintenance.

“We can’t cut our way out of this deficit,” said Sen. Hank Coe, R-Cody, who chairs the Senate Education Committee. “It’s got to be a balance of making changes; it’s got to be a balance of revenue as well.”

A legislative subcommittee released a white paper last month exploring possible solutions to the education funding deficit. While cuts are one component, lawmakers also are looking at using money from savings accounts and increasing taxes to generate more revenue for education funding.

Senate President Eli Bebout said Tuesday that “the best thing we can do before — before — we start raising taxes, is to have a serious discussion about spending in government in K-12 education,” the AP reported.

Rep. Northrup said lawmakers may break the $400 million deficit into five $80 million pieces.

“We’re kind of headed down a five-pronged attack that way, at $80 million each in the long run — we just need to start filling up that hole out there,” Northrup said.

Beyond cuts, the white paper also suggests looking at: Current savings, existing funding streams, spending policies and revenue enhancements.

Lawmakers could consider increasing the statewide sales tax, which would bring in about $150 million annually; another idea is to start charging sales tax on health and professional services to generate roughly $64 million a year. Lawmakers also have talked about adding more property taxes for education, amounting to about $20 million per mill.

“All of those things need to have triggers on them, regardless of what we do,” Northrup said. “If the economy turns around, we need to be able to say, ‘Those taxes go away, and we’re back to where we were and use the funds we have coming in.’”

While education funds have dried up due to the downturn in energy markets, legislators and school leaders hope the economy could turn around.

“Even though that picture is really bleak, would you agree with me that there is room, I guess somewhere in there, that we can be a little bit hopeful?” said Jay Curtis, superintendent of Meeteetse Schools. “That right now we’re preparing for the worst, but we may not be pulling the trigger on some of this?”

“I am hopeful about the new administration,” Sen. Coe answered, adding that he thinks there will be significant changes in Washington. “Doom and gloom is probably the way we’ve been reacting, but I’m optimistic about the way things have an opportunity to go.”

However, even if the economy does turn around in the future, he noted it would take time for that money to return to the state.

If the state economy improves down the road, it’s important to build up savings for education again, Northrup said.

“We need to get that built back up, because you saw how fast $568 million went. Poof, it was gone in a year,” he said.

“Thank God we had some reserves to fall back on,” said Don Hansen, a Powell school board trustee. “I would hate to see the cuts we would have had to make.”

As legislators discuss education funding, Northrup said public input is important and told school leaders “we want all of you to be part of the solution.”

“This is not going to be easy lifting,” Coe added. “It’s going to be very difficult, but we have an obligation to do it the best we can, and I can tell you we will.”

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