Recalibration committee to consider ‘cost-based’ approach to school activities funding

(Cheyenne, WY) – A new plan is in the works to address the funding shortfall that has impacted many school activities budgets this year due to recent changes to the state’s K-12 funding model. 

The proposal features a “cost-based model” for activities funding that would “reflect the realities of Wyoming,” Wyoming School Boards Association Executive Director Brian Farmer told the Legislature’s Select Committee on School Finance Recalibration last month. 

He was referring to the fact that, according to Legislative Service Office Budget Fiscal Deputy Administrator Matthew Willmarth, for the past 20 years school districts throughout the state have spent “substantially more on student activities than what’s been allocated” by the legislature.

For the 2024-2025 school year, for example, Willmarth said Wyoming school districts spent 9 percent more than what the model allocated.

The legislature had provided a “significant increase” in student activity funding that year, however, Willmarth said, noting that, for a decade before that, school districts throughout the state spent an average of 32 percent more on student activities than what the state funding model allocated.

“They’ve always spent more than the model had on activities,” Wyoming Rep. Mike Yin, D-Jackson said. “They’ve just taken it from the teachers in the past. … Now they don’t have the flexibility.”

The recalibration bill the legislature passed this year included an instructional resources silo that now limits school districts’ flexibility to shift money between funding categories.

During a committee meeting in June, Willmarth said the legislature could consider including activities in the instructional resource silo in order to restore some of that funding flexibility – but some lawmakers expressed concern that that move might negatively impact teacher pay increases.

Another idea that came out of the June meeting was to allow some districts to revert back to the school-based activities funding formula that was in place before the 2026 recalibration.

That proposal raised some equity concerns, however, with Wyoming Rep. Chip Neiman, R-Hulett, pointing out that some districts would see an increase in activities funding while others would merely go “back to where they were.”

Yin – who initially suggested the “best of” idea – said he wasn’t “happy” with the proposal anymore, either.

That’s why he started working with Farmer and others to “figure out what a different model” could look like.

The group wasn’t ready to present the alternative during last month’s meeting, but Yin said he would work with legislative staffers to develop the proposal into a bill draft for the committee to consider when it meets again in October.