Legislature looks at school funding

"This is huge," State Representative Nathan Winters said Tuesday morning. "This is the biggest thing Hot Springs County has faced."

Winters is referring to the privatization bill, SF112, that would have allowed an outside company to come in and take over the Wyoming Pioneer Home and the Wyoming Retirement Center in Basin.

According to Winters, there was no doubt in anyone's mind the bill was going to pass.

"It was going to go through," he said. "There was a lot of pressure to pass it. We are amazed it went down."

Winters and his Senate companion, Wyatt Agar, spent long hours not only trying to kill SF112 but getting continued funding for the home for the next two years. They actually got the funding before the bill passed.

"I got down on one knee beside every desk," Winter said, "and I talked with the legislators, one on one. They needed help understanding what this really meant."

The pair managed to get another bill pulled from the budget that would have called for yet another study into the privatization issue.

"The effort is not over," Winters said.

The issues coming up during the next couple of weeks revolve a lot around school funding.

Winters said most are originating in the Senate, but things need to be figured out for a long term plan for funding the Department of Education. Policy changes need to be made to make things whole again for the students in Wyoming.

"Cuts will have to be made," Winters said, "but there is a lot of push back about adding more to the common core curriculum. Right now it just isn't financially feasible to add more to our educator's plates."

He is hopeful, over the next two weeks, that the differences between the house and the senate over school funding can be worked out.