Balow: Wyoming School Funding Could Face Financial Cliff

Wyoming Superintendent of Public Instruction Jillian Balow says school funding in the state will eventually face a financial cliff if a solution is not found to the $300 million per year structural deficit that it currently faces.

Balow made the comments in an interview  with ''Wake Up Wyoming" host Glenn Woods on Tuesday morning

The Wyoming Legislature, in the 2021 General Session, could not agree on a new school funding bill. The state House and Senate had different versions of a school funding measure and efforts to negotiate an agreement before the session ended were unsuccessful.

The disagreement was rather heated at times, with one Senator calling House members "big-spending liberals." Lawmakers are expected to meet in a special session later this year, probably in July, to appropriate federal COVID stimulus money, and some of that will probably be allocated to school funding.

But that is not a permanent solution to the annual funding shortfall, as Balow told Woods. She echoed comments made by Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon earlier this year in telling Woods that the current school funding system is ''not sustainable."

You can hear the entire Jillian Balow interview on the ''Wake Up Wyoming'' program on the audio below.