Bill
# SF037
K-12 School Facilities Maintenance and Appropriations
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Summary
Bill Description
AN ACT relating to K-12 public school finance; increasing the allowable education square footage utilized to calculate routine and major maintenance for school districts; providing appropriations; and providing for effective date.
Notes
This proposed bill is a shortsighted and wasteful measure that exemplifies Wyoming's misplaced priorities in education funding, funneling millions from the public school foundation program into bloated bureaucratic channels and facility upkeep while starving direct investments in students and teachers. By temporarily inflating allowable square footage for school buildings and then dumping nearly $44 million into maintenance over two years, it diverts scarce resources away from classroom essentials like teacher salaries, student programs, and instructional materials. In an era of teacher shortages and rising student needs, this bill reeks of bureaucratic self-preservation, prioritizing bricks and mortar over human capital and exacerbating inequality in educational outcomes.
The bill amends the education resource block grant model to exclude excess space only above 135% (up from 115%) of standard levels for the 2025-2026 school year in maintenance and operations calculations. This one-year bump effectively greenlights funding for oversized, underutilized buildings, rewarding inefficient district planning and pouring more money into facility maintenance rather than reallocating it to teacher retention or student support services.
Similarly, for major repairs under W.S. 21-15-109, it raises the cap to 135% for that year, allowing districts to claim reimbursements for sprawling infrastructure that exceeds adequacy standards. This isn't about modernizing classrooms for better learning—it's about subsidizing excess square footage, which ties up funds in bureaucratic oversight by the state superintendent and department of education. Instead of capping waste to free up dollars for hiring more educators or reducing class sizes, the bill enables a temporary spending spree on buildings, sidelining the real needs of students and teachers who are already stretched thin.
The heart of the anti-education bias lies here: The appropriation of $31.9 million from the public school foundation program account to the state construction department for "major maintenance payments" over 2026-2028. These direct transfers funnel money meant for foundational education into a separate bureaucratic entity focused solely on buildings—think repairs, renovations, and facility upgrades that benefit contractors and administrators more than kids in the classroom. By routing these funds through the construction department, it adds layers of red tape, audits, and overhead costs, ensuring less efficiency and more bureaucratic bloat.
Adding insult to injury, another $11.8 million goes to the department of education's school finance division for "routine maintenance." Again, this pulls from the same foundation program pot, which is supposed to support teacher pay, curriculum, and students. Combined, that's $43.7 million diverted to facilities in just two years starkly favoring inanimate assets over people, perpetuating a system where bureaucrats and builders thrive while teachers burn out and students get shortchanged on resources.
It highlights a fundamental misalignment in priorities—valuing empty hallways over engaged minds—and should be scrapped in favor of legislation that puts people first, not property. Wyoming's kids deserve better than this facility-focused fiasco.
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