Things aren’t always as they appear.
Let’s be clear: the Freedom Caucus and the legislature’s Select Committee on School Finance Recalibration seem to be misleading Wyoming residents and ultimately trying to “buy” teachers’ support, all while continuing to violate the Wyoming Constitution, blatantly ignoring the court’s order, and dismissing the needs of students and teachers in the hope that voters won’t notice.
When the Recalibration Committee met in Casper last week, the purpose was to discuss the preliminary recommendations of the education funding consultants and to move forward with a recalibration bill for consideration during the 2026 legislative session. While on the surface some of the movement seemed positive, it’s worth a deeper dive into these issues. And keep in mind that it’s been 17 years since the legislature has properly funded education as required by the Wyoming Constitution!
Fact Check:
- Salaries: Let’s start by acknowledging that the model starting salary for teachers is only slightly more than $40,000. So, when providing recommendations for teacher salaries, the consultants failed to adjust their methodology. WEA’s school finance litigation addressed these shortcomings where the methods were found to be lacking, but they still proceeded to recommend that actual average salaries be raised from $65,265 to $70,812. This ignores the fact that the legislature must adjust the model. It’s important to note that this recommendation does not mean teachers will receive a $5k raise. By using actual averages, the outliers (districts that pay more) will skew this allocation.
- External Cost Adjustment (ECA): In his order earlier this year regarding school finance, Judge Peter Froelicher stated: “The Court finds the State’s method used to account for inflation is flawed because it does not properly account for inflation of each of the required components of the Funding Model.” Additionally, he noted that the legislature “has not adopted cumulative ECAs in years when the State’s experts identified the emergence of cost pressures.” In short, the legislature’s history of providing ongoing and sustained ECAs is woefully neglectful. If the legislature continues this practice, any small increase in salaries will likely be negated due to inflationary pressures in just a few short years, making the “raises” received a mere short-term bonus.
- Insurance: The legislature intends to mandate that districts use the state insurance plan. Business managers across the state conduct cost-benefit analysis to determine which affordable insurance plan best suits their needs (only one district chose to use the state plan). This mandate will increase insurance costs for districts, and those costs are passed on to educators through increases in contributions. This too would wipe out any gains made by the “raises” provided by the legislature.
- Staffing pulled out of the “model”: The Wyoming School Foundation Program provides a guaranteed level of funding to every Wyoming public school district through a block grant model. A block grant allows districts flexibility because each district — and the challenges they face — are unique. A categorical grant mandates where and only where those dollars can be spent. The committee’s recommendation is to pull all staffing in the “Staffing for Core Programs” category out of the block grant, which (among other issues) will increase class sizes.
- Increase in Class Sizes: For grades 4-12, the committee recommends increasing class sizes from a 21-to-1 student/teacher ratio to 25- to-1, which is especially problematic when combined with the consequences of pulling staff out of the block grant model and the fact that classroom sizes are calculated as an average. Additionally, many Wyoming school buildings cannot handle that increase, meaning a significant jump in school construction costs.
- Litigation Components: The committee removed all components of WEA’s litigation from the funding bill, ignoring the court order which remains in place. Their model removed technology for students, school lunches, school resource officers, and elementary school counselors; instead, the committee wishes to “study those components” into the 2026-27 interim legislative session.
Let’s be clear: the judge ordered the legislature to fix these deficiencies during recalibration. The attempt to “study” them is a work-around to ignore the court’s order. The real-world impact is that education professionals will not have the necessary resources to address the challenges in public schools including learning loss, food insecurity, or student behavior.
But there is hope! We need educators and education advocates to stay engaged with these issues – consider testifying during the upcoming legislative session, either in person or remotely, and continue to contact your legislators with your thoughts. Without accountability, the legislature (and in particular the Freedom Caucus) will continue to undermine Wyoming’s education professionals and our public schools.
The Recalibration Committee meets again in January, and it provides another chance for us to share the story of our schools, our students, our profession. If you’d like your voice to be heard by this committee, please reach out to Government Relations Director Tate Mullen. Remember: these so-called “raises” are not a win for our educators. They are hoping it keeps you silent.
In solidarity!