A Wyoming district court judge who oversaw a two-week trial in Cheyenne issued a decision Wednesday that said the Wyoming Legislature has not been funding schools adequately.
Schools are funded on a model which considers many different components – including salaries, facilities, support staff and transportation. Wyoming’s Constitution requires the state to fund a complete and uniform school system.
The court decision was 187 pages long – far beyond the scope of one Cowboy State Daily column. Examining one component of the funding model – teacher’s salaries – might show why the court ruled as it did on this one issue.
Wyoming’s Legislature has been skimping on funding education since the last recalibration of teacher salaries following the Campbell cases in 2005. That’s a series of cases in which the courts told lawmakers how to apply the Constitution’s education funding mandate.
In the early 2000s, our teachers were paid fairly and our State stood squarely in support of education.
But more recently our Legislature has failed to fund schools to keep up with inflation, market pressures, and modern educational components – something our Constitution requires. Lawmakers have skipped cost of living increases more often than they have given them, compounding the pay gap each year.
In 2010, the Legislature accounted for an average teacher salary of $53,046. Twelve years later it had increased to $53,506. That’s less than a $40 per year increase. Over that same time, the Wyoming Cost of Living Index (COL) increased 1.451%. If the legislature applied the constitutionally-required adjustments, salaries would have increased to $76,970, an annual difference to teachers of $23,464.
Administrations have had to adjust spending to attract and keep quality teachers. Our school districts have hired fewer support staff, pulling from that money pool to increase teacher pay above the legislative model’s amount.
While the model average is $53,506, school districts are paying an average of $62,823. Wyoming’s current block grant model has teacher salaries at about 93% of the regional average – below its neighboring states, except South Dakota.
The state’s own consultants reported in 2018 that teacher salaries had “fallen by up to 13 percent since 2012” because the model had not been adjusted for inflation. It is hard to win a case when the state’s own experts testify against its position.
Normally when employers give a cost-of-living increase, it is a permanent increase to employee pay. Instead of building in that increase for inflation, the Legislature has played games with teacher pay. Sometimes lawmakers dole out an increase just for one budget year, so the pay would slump right back down after that year.
For example, if you had a 2% “increase” for year 1 only, then in year two, the “increase” would need to be 4% to keep up with inflation.
The problem is, the teachers have felt the pinch of this bad policy. This effective pay decrease is causing us to lose good teachers to other careers. It discourages young people from applying for jobs they see their state as not valuing.
As teacher pay has decreased, so have applicants for jobs. Teaching positions remain open into the start of the school year – something unheard-of when teacher salaries kept pace with inflation. This has led to less qualified candidates for teaching positions and schools looking to fill those roles with provisional licensed teachers. The pay gap produces staffing shortages too: fewer teacher aids, bus drivers, and special education support staff. All of this makes teaching and learning harder.
In response to the low pay situation, our Legislature has brought bills to decrease teacher qualifications, rather than address the problem in a constitutionally-approved manner.
What the Legislature ought to do is listen to its own consultants instead of conjuring appropriations not based in fact. It should fund to the level the Constitution requires.
A well-educated workforce and electorate form the backbone of our communities, our economy, and our democracy.
Funding for teachers and staff should be indexed to the Wyoming Cost of Living automatically, removing our educational system from the whims of politicians vying for the next election. All other expenditures should remain secondary.
Instead of carping and whining about “activist judges,” or manipulating education for political gain, the Legislature should uphold its constitutionally mandated duty to fund the schools to the level required by the model that the Legislature itself has written into law. The sooner the Legislature quits playing politics with our children, the sooner court cases about school funding will end.
Tom Lubnau served in the Wyoming Legislature from 2004 - 2015 and is a former Speaker of the House. He can be reached at: YourInputAppreciated@gmail.com
