Wyoming School Board Association supports raising state sales tax

by Kathryn Palmer

Wyoming Tribune Eagle

The Wyoming School Boards Association voted last week to support raising the state’s 4% sales tax by 1% – which would go directly toward education expenses – to help fill in the enormous education budget gap facing the state.

“Nobody loves taxes. Nobody likes to say ‘Tax me more,’” said Brian Farmer, executive director of the WSBA. “But I think what was really important in the discussion among our membership was that they believe that cuts alone are not going to resolve the issue and that revenue has to be a part of the solution.”

The association plans to submit a formal letter outlining the proposal to members of the Wyoming Legislature this week.

The decline in revenue from the state’s once-booming coal, oil and gas industries has created a roughly $300 million shortfall in the state’s K-12 budget for the 2021-22 biennium, and that gap is expected to double in the next two years. Right now, about 65% of school districts’ budgets comes from the state, which derives the majority of that money from now-jeopardized mineral royalties.

Several weeks ago, lawmakers – who will have the final say in passing an education budget next spring – asked the state’s school districts to illustrate what would happen if they had to balance their budgets making cuts alone.

Laramie County School District 1, which is the second-largest employer in Wyoming’s most populated city, said a 16% cut to next year’s budget could result in the loss of roughly 350 jobs, as well as major changes to the educational programming it currently offers, including athletics and other extracurricular activities.

LCSD1 Board of Trustees Chair Margeurite Herman said that while the board is divided on its support of the 1% sales tax for education, she is personally in support of the measure.

Additional revenue for education, Herman said, “would allow the Legislature to approve a school funding model that met the constitutional requirement to provide Wyoming schoolchildren an adequate and equitable education.”

Per Wyoming’s Constitution, the Legislature has an obligation to “provide for the establishment and maintenance of a complete and uniform system of public instruction.”

Without a new revenue stream, “the Legislature leaves itself with devastating (cuts to) the model and cutting the education guarantee as the only option,” Herman said.

To avoid such a severe blow to educational offerings in the state, the WSBA has now committed to lobbying the Wyoming Legislature to find a new, more stable revenue stream for education in the form of a 1% sales tax.

However, the idea of raising additional taxes has been historically unpopular with many members of the Legislature.

“Our members don’t necessarily feel this is the perfect solution,” Farmer said. “But when we think about what is the most likely, simplest approach that can address a revenue gap in the education fund, this sales tax appears to be a possible solution, and we would like the Legislature to really dig into that.”

Farmer said that while the sales tax increase might not be the only solution, it would start generating revenue within 30 days of being enacted, whereas raising something like property taxes would take up to 18 months to start turning profits for the state.

“If (the Legislature) were to say (the 1% sales tax) is not the solution, then the ball’s in their court to say what is,” Farmer said. “At the end of the day, it’s really about people saying we value education too much to see these massive cuts to education.”