Future of some school resources and programs uncertain after most recent school funding recalibration

GILLETTE — Local school officials are upset with Wyoming’s recently approved school funding recalibration model.

Campbell County School District Superintendent Alex Ayers said the bill — which was passed by the House and Senate and became law without the governor’s signature — creates an uncertain future for some programs and services and also financially punishes teachers residing in mineral-rich school districts like Campbell County, Ayers told the school board Tuesday night.

Recalibration is a school funding process in Wyoming that takes place every five years.

This year’s iteration for K-12 funding has a unique structure that leaves CCSD uncertain it can fund a full education to students for the next five years without some creative school district budgeting, Ayers said.

The 2026 recalibration introduces the “instructional silo,” which earmarks parts of the state budget specifically for classroom instruction, such as teacher pay and classroom material.

These silos do not include funding for food, school resource officers, nurses, primary school counselors and recreation, Ayers told the school board.

However, the silo does free up more money for teachers to be paid more than previous recalibration, though not as much in mineral-rich districts like Campbell County. Teachers in Teton County instead get the biggest pay increase.

Ayers explained that if the money paying for kids to travel for sports tournaments, club activities or staffing doesn’t come from the state, it would have to come from the district — if it has the money — or not get funded at all.

Associate Superintendent for Instructional Support Dave Bartlett said the board will have more information on programs potentially affected by recalibration at an April 14 board meeting.

Where the silo may fall short

The CCSD administration claims that with the silos, lawmakers and government workers in Cheyenne have more power to manage schools at the local level.

Schools had been funded by a block grant model where the Wyoming Department of Education would provide school districts a lump sum. The districts would spend the money based on their individual needs.

With the silo model, the state decides what the state money gets used for, usurping the school districts’ ability to designate funding themselves.

The legislature passed the silo funding model despite a recommendation for a block grant model from consultant Lawrence Picus, vice dean for faculty affairs and professor of education finance and policy in the University of Southern California Rossier School of Education.

Gordon criticized this in a letter to Senate President Bo Biteman, R-Ranchester.

“I have been mindful of the legislature’s predilection that it knows best how to run things at a local level,” Gordon wrote. “This attitude is not unlike what we have seen at the federal level when it comes to prescribing how states should conduct their affairs.”

Proponents of the silo model said that it keeps classroom funding in the classroom, but as Gordon and Ayers argue, despite good intentions, the silo also leaves out huge chunks of everything that a school provides.

Ayers said that he can’t say all school programs running now will certainly get funded, but money for, say, a sports team’s travel expenses to another city — including hotels, food, gas for buses — would have to come from somewhere else.

Board trustee Mary Brunner asked for an example of a program that may not be funded under recalibration during the meeting.

Ayers said that it’s not certain that things won’t be funded, but he noted that school nurses, central office employees and custodians were overlooked by legislators creating the silo funding.

Gordon wrote in his letter that the silo is a “starting point” as a school funding model that fails to encapsulate everything a school provides.

Despite a great level of effort from legislators and meetings with consultants under a tight timeline, Ayers said, the silo could leave the district scrambling to ensure it can provide students a full education that includes extracurriculars, counselors and safety.

This year’s recalibration did have one major benefit: an increase to teacher pay.

Teacher pay

Consultants found that based on their funding model teachers in Wyoming should be paid more, Ayers said.

But some counties, especially mineral-rich counties, are being paid much less based on cost of living.

Teton County teachers get the biggest pay bump by far, Ayers said.

“I’m glad they decided to take care of them,” board chair Lisa Durgin said while rolling her eyes.

Teachers are paid based on a calculation of a base salary then adjusted based on cost of living. CCSD teachers get a 6% increase to their salary because of Campbell County’s cost of living.

But that cost of living will be recalculated.

“(Picus) simply doesn’t believe it costs as much to hire teachers in Campbell County as it used to,” Ayers said. “So that 6% is going to go away.”

The living cost calculation for the state is what is costing teachers their pay.

“There are some communities that are hurting, and they tend to be mineral-heavy communities,” Ayers said.

Definite numbers for Campbell County teacher pay are still being worked through, Bartlett said in an interview.

But the school district can pay teachers more than state consultants calculated because it hires fewer employees than researchers recommended, Ayers said Tuesday.

The state uses a model recommended by a researcher, Christiana Stoddard, that compares teachers with other jobs that require post-secondary degrees such as nurses or accountants.

Using salary data from jobs requiring post-secondary degrees, the model recommends teachers are paid a percentage of the average salary for comparable jobs.

One big flaw with the model is that it finds that teachers work fewer hours than full-time employees in other sampled industries, Ayers said. Stoddard cites self-reported data from a survey to come to that conclusion.

“They’ve used that research for a long time,” Ayers said. “I’ve never seen those questions. I don’t know what they ask about other than the work day, but if you know a teacher, if you’ve lived with a teacher, been a teacher, you know your workday doesn’t start at 7:30 and it doesn’t end at 3:30. You’re getting ready for that next day all night long.”

Stoddard recommended the legislature pay teachers 79% of the average salary that their counterparts earn in her model. The legislature opted to pay teachers 85% instead, Ayers said.

Consultants and legislators are still trying to figure out why teachers in blue-collar communities such as Campbell, Converse, Sublette and Sweetwater counties are designated less money, according to Stoddard’s funding model.

Ayers speculated that because Stoddard’s model compares jobs that require at least a bachelor’s degree, and Campbell County has a lot of high-paying jobs that don’t require a bachelor’s degree, teachers are deemed to be paid less.

Wyoming’s constitution mandates that counties provide an equal education to all students no matter what county they live in. The model’s conclusions regarding teacher pay in Teton County versus blue-collar counties such as Campbell County may raise some legal questions, Ayers said.

“Some people think this model, or the changes made, are constitutional,” Ayers said. “I don’t know about that. I think there are some constitutional questions.”

This story was published on March 13, 2026.