Senate passes heavily amended bill to cut education funding [View all]

Wyoming school districts would lose 5 percent of the money in their state-provided block grant by the end of the decade under a heavily amended bill that has passed the Senate and been received by the House.

The measure, Senate File 165, is a substitute bill that’s markedly different from its predecessor. It now would cut the block grant funding given to districts by 2.5 percent for the 2018-19 school year and 5 percent by the 2019-2020 school year, as well as freeze transportation and special education spending at 2011-12 and 2015-16 levels, respectively.

The bill represents one of the most wide-ranging attempts in the Legislature to address an education funding crisis that could hit $400 million annually in the coming years. The situation is the product of a prolonged downturn in the energy economy that’s also crippled Wyoming’s ability to pay for school construction and maintenance.

Sen. Bill Landen, a Casper Republican and the bill’s sponsor, told fellow lawmakers this week that something needed to be done about the deficit in this session.

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