 - The Central Wyoming College Board of Trustees voted to increase student fees this month, citing anticipated budget cuts resulting from the property tax relief measures the Wyoming Legislature passed this year.){kind=link}
(Riverton, WY) – The Central Wyoming College Board of Trustees voted to increase student fees this month, citing anticipated budget cuts resulting from the property tax relief measures the Wyoming Legislature passed this year.
According to minutes from the April 4 meeting, the approved fee changes include:
- General fee – increase by $4, from $24 to a total of $28 per credit
- Out-of-District Site Fee (i.e., Jackson) – increase by $4, from $8 to a total of $12 per credit
- New fee to provide support to the cost of distance education – online course – $4 per credit
Voluntary separation
The increased fees should generate an additional $120,000 for CWC, according to the meeting minutes.
But the college expects to lose about $800,000 in property tax revenues because of the actions the legislature took in 2025, CWC President Brad Tyndall said this week, so CWC is also considering additional ways to “chip away” at the problem beyond raising fees.
One strategy is to ask employees to consider entering into “voluntary separation agreements” with the college, Tyndall said.
That process already started earlier this year, he noted, when CWC asked staffers to indicate whether they might be interested in voluntary separation.
Those who submitted letters of interest received more information about the voluntary separation process this week, Tyndall said, and they now have 45 days to make a final decision.
If enough people opt into voluntary separation, Tyndall added, CWC hopes to avoid making further reductions in force this year.
“We’re trying to avoid that at all costs,” he said. “(But) when you cut $800,000, and 75 percent of your costs are in people, it definitely kind of begs the question that there might have to be a reduction in force.”
‘The last straw’
Tyndall characterized this year’s reduction in property tax revenues as “the straw that broke the camel’s back” after more than a decade of unrelieved “inflationary pressure” on community colleges in Wyoming – which don’t receive automatic inflation adjustments from the state.
“This is like the last straw,” Tyndall said. “There’s not much to cut anymore because we’re down millions from (having) no inflation adjustment.”
He shared a chart of data showing that, in 2011, all eight community colleges in Wyoming received a total of about $180 million in state aid.
By this year, however, that total had only grown to about $193 million, Tyndall said – almost $80 million less than it would be if inflation were factored into the equation.
Combined with this year’s loss in local funding due to decreases in property tax revenues, Tyndall said the impact to all community colleges in Wyoming amounts to more than $100 million.
“That’s our reality,” he said. “(That) cut in revenues from property taxes … put us in a very tight situation.”
For CWC, he said the combined impact amounts to about $1 million – a reduction that will require local administrators to be “very strategic” as they prepare their budgets for the coming year – because the college is no longer “cutting fat; we’re cutting … flesh and bone at this point.”
Those cuts will have a “multiplier effect,” he pointed out, because community colleges provide a “ridiculously good” return on investment to the state by “transforming lives a strengthening communities.”
“This is not the area you want to cut,” he said. “We need sustainable funding solutions. (We) need more money to adjust for inflation. … That is our quest.”
The CWC Board of Trustees is scheduled to discuss its budget for the coming fiscal year in May, according to minutes from the April 4 meeting.
The minutes note that, if the college needs to submit a request for a reduction in force, that would also occur in May.