CHEYENNE—Lawmakers have just begun scratching the surface of their main duty this session: putting together a balanced state budget for the next two years. A key focus of the negotiations starting this week is funding for the University of Wyoming.
Last week, the Senate and House each walked through the Joint Appropriations Committee’s budget recommendations. Lawmakers had the opportunity to ask questions and debate the committee’s proposals. At the heart of the debate over UW’s budget was the much-discussed $40 million cut in block grant funding that lawmakers on the JAC had approved — an almost 11% decrease from Gov. Mark Gordon’s recommendation.
Lawmakers have yet to make any changes to the JAC’s proposed budget. That work will start Tuesday, when they will begin adding amendments and footnotes that change funding amounts and specify rules for how recipients of state money can use those funds. Some amendments have already been posted on the Legislative Service Office website.
Budget footnotes can hold considerable leverage. It was through a budget footnote in 2024 that the Legislature passed a mandate forbidding UW from using any state money for diversity, equity and inclusion programming and curricula. The school closed its DEI office as a result.
More footnotes are likely this year. On the first day of the legislative session, Rep. John Bear, R-Gillette, said at a press conference for the Wyoming Freedom Caucus — a group of hard-line Republicans that championed budget cuts for UW — that he and his colleagues were “working on those budget footnotes and amendments” for the school’s funding. “We will bring specific changes that we’d like to see, but it’ll be the body of 93 that will decide what are the specific things we want to target at the university,” Bear said.
Lawmakers who championed the move to cut UW’s block grant — primarily Wyoming Freedom Caucus members and their allies — made no secret about their motivations. Bear told his colleagues in the House last week that lawmakers had proposed the $40 million number because they hadn’t gotten the school’s “attention” through their past actions. Lawmakers of the same persuasion say this money should be redirected to Wyoming’s community colleges and career and technical education programs. They also want the University of Wyoming to narrow its focus on what the lawmakers describe as a “practical education.”
“We’re going to pull this money back, and we want you to focus on ag, we want you to focus on engineering, we want you to focus on education, these other things that benefit Wyoming specifically, rather than training people in majors, minors, ideas and concepts where they’re not going to be, frankly, at home in Wyoming,” Rep. Ken Pendergraft, R-Sheridan, said.
But restricting what is taught at the university, some argued, could drive the state’s young people away — a problem that Wyoming has already long grappled with. “This is a bad message to every single kid in our state,” Rep. Lee Filer, R-Cheyenne, said. “And if we want to just open the border, and let them go to that state south of us, because they actually offer these programs, because we refuse to compete, we’re going to lose our kids.”
Other lawmakers worry that these cuts will impact the school’s ability to provide a low-cost education. “There are some topics that you guys think that the university shouldn’t teach. So we’re punishing every single student in the university for it? Because that’s the result, right? They’re going to increase tuition. They’re gonna have to make up the money somehow,” Rep. Mike Yin, D-Jackson, pointed out to his colleagues in the House last week.
The $40 million cut wouldn’t be distributed evenly across the university’s schools and programs. Lawmakers have included carveouts for the College of Education, the College of Agriculture, Life Sciences and Natural Resources, the Wyoming Outdoor Recreation, Tourism and Hospitality Institute, the Center of Innovation for Flow Through Porous Media and the High Bay Research Facility. Lawmakers decided to exclude the outdoor program, the innovation center and the research facility after making carveouts for education and ag.
Some lawmakers questioned the logic behind these exceptions. By including carveouts, the body would essentially be “penalizing some of those other colleges,” Sen. Gary Crum, R-Laramie, pointed out to his colleagues in the Senate last week.
“I’m wondering why we’re picking winners and losers,” he said.
The carveouts, others said, are a way to highlight the Legislature’s priorities and preferences for the school. “We’re not dismissing or diminishing the importance of any of those other programs,” Sen. Larry Hicks, R-Baggs, said. “We’re just saying, from a legislative perspective and the industries that the university supports through the land grant mission, this is our priority.”
Some lawmakers don’t think that such a sweeping cut is the best approach for reshaping UW. “To simply cut the money on day 1 means that there’s no incentive to change really, because you don’t acquire anything by changing,” Rep. Art Washut, R-Casper, said on the House floor last week. “I think a little carrot mixed in with a stick would make a lot more sense.”
The budget that emerged from JAC includes other restrictions and reductions. The JAC denied the governor’s $12.5 million request for one-time matching funds intended to boost fundraising, his $6 million request to support the school’s athletics, his $1.69 million request to fund Wyoming Public Media and another request to fund an assistant professor for UW’s family medicine residency program in Casper.
The current budget would bar the school from using any state money to fund Wyoming Public Media, elective abortions for students or group health insurance that provides coverage of such abortions. It also directs the school to use $6 million of its state money “for equipment and construction expenditures related to career and technical education” and $400,000 for the school’s rodeo team.
Some proposed amendments to the JAC’s budget have already been posted. Yin, for example, sponsored an amendment that aims to restore the $12.5 million in matching funds and do away with most spending restrictions, including the carveouts. Sen. Ogden Driskill, R-Devils Tower, sponsored an amendment on the Senate side with the same language for UW.
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Correction: This story has been updated to correct an incorrect reference to the community that Rep. Mike Yin represents. —Ed.
Why is it that education and educators are always some of the first targets of authoritarian wannabes? History shows this clearly.
To think, this nonFreedom group of dimwits, hayseeds, carpetbaggers and stooges wants to preside over the budget of an Institution of Higher Learning?! They can’t even keep their check-gate scandal straight. Can’t make this shit up