A legislative committee on Wednesday unanimously advanced a bill to create a universal school voucher program in Wyoming amid concerns about costs, accountability and constitutionality.
The House Education Committee voted 9-0 to pass House Bill 199, “Wyoming Freedom Scholarship Act.” The bill would transform and expand an existing state education savings account program that gives funds to income-qualified families to help them pay for pre-K programs, homeschooling or private school tuition. Version 2.0 would offer up to $7,000 per student regardless of a family’s need for non-public-school K-12 costs.
“Last year, we passed Wyoming’s first ESA law, but it was quite restrictive,” said the bill’s sponsor Rep. Ocean Andrew, R-Laramie. House Bill 199 aims to loosen many of those restrictions, drop the preschool component and make it universal. It would no longer require participating students to take statewide assessments or similar nationwide tests. Nor would the state require providers to be certified by the Department of Education, which the current ESA program stipulates.
Education groups and others testified strongly against the measure, saying it will only benefit wealthy families while it siphons significant funds from Wyoming’s already-struggling public school system. Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder is in favor of universal access, but requested that the pre-K, provider certification and testing requirements be reinstated.
Rep. Martha Lawley, R-Worland, attempted to make amendments to address Degenfelder’s feedback, but they failed. The measure now heads to the House floor, where it must pass three readings before it can advance to the Senate.
For and against
The educational savings account program that passed the Legislature in 2024 traveled a rocky path to become law; it was transformed, killed, revived, amended scores of times, passed by the Legislature, then partially vetoed by Gov. Mark Gordon. The tug-of-war reflected advocates’ divergent priorities: early childhood education for some, universal access to non-public-school choice for others.
House Bill 199 reflects a renewed push from the latter camp. Andrew cited programs in states like Utah and Arizona as models for what he wants to achieve in Wyoming. Among other changes, Andrew’s bill would change the funding mechanism from the general fund to state mineral royalty revenue.
One of the major concerns with the ESA bill, and again with HB 199, is its constitutionality. The Wyoming Constitution prohibits the state from giving money to individuals “except for the necessary support of the poor.” It also prohibits public funds to be used for private or parochial schools. Opponents who ranged from former teachers to parents, former school board trustees and education lobbyists raised that concern among others when urging lawmakers to abandon the bill.
Wyoming Education Association Government Relations Director Tate Mullen told the committee that when his organization analyzed HB 199, “it does fail on measurements of equity, cost effectiveness, administrative feasibility and effectiveness.”
The bill is unconstitutional, costly and extremely vulnerable to misuse of government funds, he said. “As the bill stands, there is no accountability here,” Mullen added. “Waste, fraud and abuse are much higher for these programs than any of our other social welfare programs.”
Brian Farmer, executive director of the Wyoming School Boards Association, urged lawmakers to examine the fiscal note that legislative staff drew up for the bill.
“It basically says, ‘hey this is going to cost us … $45 million a year to operate this program,’” he said. The result will drain the School Foundation Program, which the state is obligated to fund, he said. “And so, the fiscal consequence of funding the voucher program is that it has the potential to draw down the account to such a point that it could create a structural deficit.”
Farmer also voiced support for pre-K, which experts agree has significant return on investment. And he expressed concern about accountability.
Proponents, meanwhile, said the program puts more power in parents’ hands.
“We recognize the most important thing when it comes to a child’s education, and that’s parent involvement and parents ultimately making the choice that best suits their child’s needs,” said Tyler Lindholm, state director for Americans for Prosperity Wyoming and a former lawmaker, who spoke in support.
Aaron Gillum is the policy and advocacy director for EdChoice, a national organization that works to advance education choice. Wyoming families are seeking alternative options, Gillum said, and HB 199 creates those.
Gilllum countered the narrative of many voucher opponents who said the programs have led to budget and fraud problems in other states. “Arizona and states that have enacted robust school choice programs have not seen a budget crisis because of these programs,” he said.
In 2024, Arizona did face a significant budget shortfall, ProPublica reported. Because of a $1.4-billion deficit resulting from unexpected spending on the voucher program, “alongside some recent revenue losses, Arizona is now having to make deep cuts to a wide swath of critical state programs and projects,” ProPublica reported. The Arizona Department of Education disputes that the program harmed its budget.
Stewardship
“There are really some strong voices on both for and against here,” Rep. Lawley said after public testimony. She argued that making amendments to address concerns such as those of Superintendent Degenfelder “will kind of help quell some of the concerns” and signal that “we are going to be faithful stewards of this process.”
Lawley attempted to make an amendment to reinstate the testing requirements for students, but it failed on a tie vote. A similar fate met her attempt to reinstate the provider certification.
The committee then voted 9-0 to advance it, with aye votes from Republican Reps. Andrew, Lawley, Laurie Bratten, McKay Erickson, Joel Guggenmos, Tom Kelly, Daniel Singh, Tomi Strock and JD Williams.
Correction: This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Megan Degenfelder and Laurie Bratten’s names. —Ed.
Lawsuits need filed on the existing legislation that is providing funding for the initial charter schools. The legislation is illegal and against the Constitution of the State of Wyoming and the Federal Constitution.
Leave the funding of public schools from our government exactly where it is. You want to send your kids to some private school, so be it, but you pay for it. Our public schools have our students ranked in the top 5 nationally every year. We have phenomenal teachers and schools. To fund religious
schools or mom’s is not part of the Constitution and is a huge mistake. You want something different then you fund it. And yes to have an equivalent certificate of education (diploma), your kids need to pass all the testing used here in the state. You don’t pass, you don’t receive a diploma. Your religious or personal opinions are all yours and have nothing to do with being competent or eligible to receive a diploma. And yes tax dollars are for public education. The state doesn’t pay to pave your driveway. That is your responsibility.
Degenfelder is a joke, she was only elected because there was an “R” behind her name on the ballot and she was the lessor of two evils in the primary. To give money to individuals with no means of accountability, and allow non certified providers is lunacy. Somehow this seems more like a liberal move than a fiscally responsible conservative one. I have no faith that any legislator who backs this bill have a clue about what it will ultimately cost our state to provide vouchers to all. One other thing that I would like to point out, is that Wyoming is mostly a fly over state. Yard lights are few and far between out here. For those of us who live in rural Wyoming, there is no access to private or parochial schools. So who will benefit most from these vouchers, well it’s the families that live in larger communities.
To be spending so much time, energy, and ultimately money ( because you know someone will sue) on a bill that is not constitutional is like a dog trying to catch it’s tail. We go round and round and get nowhere.
Don’t our legislators take an oath to support, obey, and defend the constitutions of the United States and Wyoming?
And we shouldn’t get indoctrinated on these dang public streets (with their billboards and signs advertising to ALL people.) Wyoming should pay for us to drive on private toll roads! Git-R-Done WYGOP!
I don’t want my kids to go to those woke public parks. The state should pay for us to go to private parks like Disneyland. Get on it, WYGOP!
Looks they hired The Riddler to push this unconstitutional bill
🤣
A Modest Proposal. An Open Letter the Wyoming Legislature:
If you are determined to waste time and resources continuing to pass bills defunding and limiting our schools’ effectiveness, we citizens ask that you simply CLOSE all Wyoming public schools, sell the campuses to businesses, put that money in a kitty, fire all the staff, and take all the money saved and divide it up among all Wyoming citizens. Then every family can do whatever it wants to do, free of other people’s points of view or oversight. Families should not even have to spend the money on what we now call “education.” If rural or less affluent and flexible or non-Christian or open-minded families have nowhere to go to educate their kids in community, it’s not everyone’s problem, it’s theirs. We don’t need these kids to be our future citizens anyhow, really, we probably have enough other kids to become our main citizens and workers. Why should we otherwise foster citizenship, community, a shared sense of history, science, language, and culture, or a shared sense of purpose? People won’t stop moving to Wyoming just because we have no public schools — the kind of families who like this idea will probably come here in even greater numbers. My child, who was educated at the Meeteetse School and at Cody High School, will never come back to Wyoming to raise a family under these circumstances, so honestly I have no skin in the game. Closing all public schools would be a much more efficient way to move forward.
Our public schools have been the great pride of our state: they have given above-average educations to ALL Wyoming citizens regardless of status, income, or background; they have been centers of community and the arts; they have employed interesting and talented professionals; they have given us shared purpose for generations; they have been the great hope for so many families.
Your proposed changes to defund and to impose dumbed-down, medieval values on education will destroy our youth and hope for our future, and if implemented, these rules should make Wyoming deservedly the laughingstock of reasonable people everywhere: better to close all public schools now, effective immediately.
Amen! Similarly, the legislature could exempt home and charter schoolers from the education portion of their property tax. That would give them property tax relief and they could take that money, pool it with like minded neighbors, and use it to build their own facility and hire a schoolmarm. Like in the old days.
Wyoming taxpayers should be put on the hook for funding of parochial schools. America has a policy of separation of church and state. Period. The so called Freedom Caucus apparently needs to be reminded of this.
I am so confused. I thought Degenfelder was the Supt. of Public Instruction, not a voting member of the Freedom Caucus, who support using public funds for private religious schools. My bad.