By Marit Gookin
The Ranger
Via- Wyoming News Exchange

RIVERTON — “We literally have the ability in Wyoming to cut our way into a budget crisis,” Sen. Ogden Driskill, R-Devils Tower, warned at a December Wyoming State Legislature’s Joint Appropriations Committee meeting. 

The conversation about funding for Wyoming’s community colleges was part of a broader conversation about the state’s budget for the next two years. 

As the committee considers funding requests going into the next biennium, it’s become clear that opinions on the committee about whether the state’s budget requires significant cuts are mixed – demonstrated in part, on December 10, by red and black jackets. 

Some of the state senators and representatives were wearing red jackets, Rep. Ken Pendergraft, R-Sheridan, explained at the start of the meeting, to visually signify their commitment to being fiscally conservative and making the hard decisions to make budget cuts where needed. 

Other committee members questioned whether such cuts were necessary. 

It’s important in times like these, noted Sen. Mike Gierau, D-Jackson, to keep hope – and institutions of education, preparing the next generation of Wyomingites for the future, are a “citadel of hope.” He said he was wearing black to represent a fair but judicious approach to budgeting that has faith in the legislature’s history of carefully-crafted fiscally conservative budgets. 

“We’re trying to cut a budget in a time of surplus … We can take that money and we can put it somewhere that has nothing to do with the future of Wyoming, or we can invest in it in our youth and our future,” Driskill commented. “I would point out that it’s the lowest baseline budget in 15 years … I encourage us all to wear black, think black.”

The baseline proposed budget the Appropriations Committee is working from includes a $1.5 million decrease in funding for Wyoming community colleges, based on enrollment decreases in 2023-25 versus 2018-2020. 

But, Wyoming Community College Commission Chief Financial Officer Brittany Leasure told the committee in December, that only accounts for enrollment, not factors such as inflation. 

“If, just say, this model included an adjustment for external costs, we would be coming to you with a $12.2 million ask rather than a $1.5 million decrease. And that includes both the enrollment adjustment and this external cost adjustment,” she commented.

According to a report requested by the appropriations committee, Wyoming community colleges are facing significant financial impacts related to federal cuts. And, Wyoming Community Colleges Commission Director Laurel Ballard testified this December, the stopping and starting of grant funds has created an environment of economic uncertainty – including the funds for the third year of a four-year grant, which were expected in October. As of December 10, the WCCC’s attempts to reach out to the U.S. Department of Education about the missing grant funds had been met with silence. 

On top of changes at the federal level, community colleges are also grappling with the financial impacts of property tax cuts. Although the committee and those testifying went back and forth on what fraction of a percent of the total community colleges budget $1.5 million is, Sheridan College President Walt Tribley emphasized that in this current economic moment, for Wyoming community colleges every cent matters. 

“I feel the responsibility that you do in balancing this budget … We presidents see quite an uncertain future,” he remarked. “We are seeing a number of schools already having to make drastic cuts.” 

Put together, the WCCC as an agency and Wyoming community colleges as a group are asking for approximately $43.7 million in funding from the state, largely to support statutorily-required programs and systems and career and technical education. That breaks down to $1.6 million spread across five requests from the WCCC; $23.1 million across four requests from the colleges; and a $19 million request from the community college presidents that Tribley delivered during the committee meeting. 

“This budget is not a compilation of administrative wishlists. It is a result of a rigorous six month public process,” Ballard emphasized, which took place in public meetings at which commissioners challenged colleges to cut everything they could, she said.

“Wyoming community colleges are outperforming the nation,” with enrollment increasing in 2025 even as most of the country saw community college enrollment fall, she said. 

“If Wyoming wants to maintain this momentum, where community colleges are beating the national averages and filling our workforce gaps, we must ensure our colleges are sustainable,” Ballard continued.

Committee members asked Ballard, Leasure, and Tribley for a variety of data and information about enrollment, funding, campus carrying capacities, and more. Dual enrollment was of particular interest to several committee members; Ballard suggested that the question of how dual enrollment is funded and how that impacts community college finances could make for a worthwhile interim topic during the next interim.

“There are those on this committee that would like this addressed, and I think that it very well could be addressed in the mark-up,” Committee Chair Sen. Tim Salazar, R-Riverton, told her, strongly recommending that she and other community college representatives work hard to have answers to the questions being posed to them.

Questions about dual enrollment, Tribley pointed out, are complicated by the fact that colleges are required to serve areas that extend well beyond their actual taxing districts. 

“All of us have counties that we are required to serve that are not levying property taxes,” he noted; for his part, Sheridan College’s district for its mill levy corresponds exactly to Sheridan County, but the WCCC has defined the college’s service area as including Johnson and Campbell counties.

 “We provide as much service as is necessary in our service district,” he said.  

Each dual enrollment memorandum of understanding between a community college and a school district is individually arrived at – and while some school districts have opted into the Board of Cooperative Higher Education Services half-mill levy, that doesn’t actually generate enough revenue to pay for the amount of classes many students wish to take, Tribley pointed out. 

Many committee members were also interested in what degree the colleges’ increases in enrollment were caused by increases in dual credit enrollment – and some seemed interested in potentially exploring how those programs could be funded by other mechanisms.

While most of the requests, outlined in a document provided to the committee members and carefully prioritized, were not surprising to the committee, Tribley’s request from the Wyoming community colleges presidents for an additional $19 million from the state’s block grant was not part of the written requests.

“We did not invent the property tax structure here; we did invent its critical nature to our endeavor. We know that that’s changing. We know that the feds are changing. We do not know how,” he commented.

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