Joint Education Committee Minutes for Meeting September 24, 2007

Committee Meeting Information

September 24, 2007

University of Wyoming Outreach Building

Casper, Wyoming

Committee Members Present

Senator Henry H.R. “Hank” Coe, Co-Chairman

Representative Del McOmie, Co-Chairman

Senator Jim Anderson

Senator Kit Jennings

Senator Mike Massie

Senator Michael Von Flatern

Representative Bernadine Craft

Representative Kathy Davison

Representative Ross Diercks

Representative W. Patrick Goggles

Representative Allen Jaggi

Representative Matt Teeters

Representative Sue Wallis

Representative Kevin White

Legislative Service Office Staff

Dave Nelson, School Finance Manager, Brenda Long, School Finance Analyst

Matthew Sackett, Research Analyst, Josh Anderson, Research Associate

Others Legislators Present

Representative Dan Dockstader

Others Present at Meeting

Please refer to Appendix 1 to review the Committee Sign-in Sheet
for a list of other individuals who attended the meeting.

Call To Order

Co-Chairman McOmie called the meeting to order at 8:30 am. The following sections summarize the Committee proceedings by topic. Please refer to Appendix 2 to review the Committee Meeting Agenda.

Approval of Minutes

Minutes from the 6-18-2007 Committee meeting were approved.

School District Local Resources

Mr. Matthew Sackett of the Legislative Service Office addressed the Committee regarding the flow of local revenue sources. Mr. Sackett provided a handout to the committee explaining the various revenue sources (see Appendix 3 for a copy of the handout). Mr. Sackett explained that there are differences in the way revenue flows between entitlement districts and recapture districts.

Ms. Brenda Long of the Legislative Service Office provided a handout to the Committee regarding the cash flow estimates for entitlement and recapture districts (see Appendix 4 for a copy of the handout). Ms. Sharon Garland of the Wyoming Treasurer's Office noted that the biggest deficits are in August, October and February.

Mr. Dave Nelson of the Legislative service office presented draft legislation related to local resources (see Appendix 5 for a copy of the draft). Mr. Nelson stated that the purpose of the proposed bill was to redirect local revenues to the school foundation program account to help even out cash flow to the districts and to address issues with the recapture of funds. Mr. Nelson noted that the proposed bill would alleviate some burdens on county treasurers and assure that each district receives the funds to which it is entitled. The state, rather than the county, would have to deal with any tax shortfall and provide payments regardless of cash inflows. Mr. Nelson then explained the specific changes to statute which would place the specific revenue sources into the school foundation account. Mr. Nelson stated that distribution under the draft legislation would provide 25% of the guarantee to each district by August 15^th, and then there would be equal payments each month through June 15^th.

Ms. Mary Kay Hill of the Department of Education, in response to a question, stated that the Department did not anticipate it would need to change its rules and regulations for this bill and that she was not yet certain of any personnel or revenue impact.

Ms. Long provided a handout to the committee with a comparison of the proposed changes to cash flow compared to the current cash flow (see Appendix 6 for a copy of the handout). Ms. Long noted that under the proposed changes there would no longer be any recapture and that all districts would essentially be considered entitlement districts.

Mr. Don Dihle of Campbell County School District 1 stated that every school district will lose money because of the loss of interest.

Mr. Kirk Schmidt of Freemont County School District 1 stated that there would be an impact on local communities because the proposed bill would pull money out of the local economy and move it to Cheyenne. Senator Massie noted that interest income is not intended to be part of the entitlement.

Ms. Michelle Hoffman of Freemont County School District 14 stated that on page 24, line 20 where the proposed language states "withhold the amount from future payments" she would like to see some type of an appeals process.

Mr. Michael Wiggam of Laramie County School District 1stated that he would like to see the first payment moved to July instead of August.

Mr. Nelson noted that the intent of the bill was to make the cash flow as even as possible and that the impact caused by lost interest income was not considered.

Ms. Hoffman noted that the proposed bill would take a piece of local control in that the schools would no longer be able to decide how to invest the funds.

Mr. Frank Johnson of Lincoln County School District 1 stated that in his opinion the bill does not benefit a single district and hurts the recapture districts.

Senator Coe made a motion that on page 24, line 11 delete "August 15" and insert "July 15" and on line 14 delete "September 15" and insert "August 15". Motion carried.

Senator Anderson made a motion that on page 12, line 10 delete "are deemed state revenues and" and on page 19, line 15 delete “shall be deemed state revenues,”. Motion passed.

Senator Coe made a motion to table the bill with the passed amendments. The motion carried.

Career and Technical Education – Implementation Recommendations

Mr. Joe Simpson, Deputy Superintendent and Teri Wigert, State Director of Career-Technical Education made a presentation to the Committee concerning Career and Technical Education (see Appendix 7 for a copy of the handout). Ms. Wigert stated that the suggestions on how to proceed were taken verbatim from chapter 3 of the study provided to the Committee by MPR and Associates. Ms. Wigert noted that there are 5 essential steps to move forward, establish a statewide steering committee, strengthen core CTE programs, conduct pilot demonstrations of comprehensive career pathways, strengthen professional development and evaluate improvements to instruction and delivery. Ms. Wigert then presented the budget request which requests funds to implement those 5 steps. make statutory changes to conduct pilot demonstrations

Mr. Simpson noted that the recommendations presented came from the vendor and that while they were moving forward with that, there is not necessarily support for some of the specific changes to modifying the Hathaway program. The cochairmen directed staff to work with the Department of Education and bring forward necessary legislation for Committee review.

Wyoming P-16 Education Council

Mr. Rollin Abernethy of the University of Wyoming gave an update to the Committee of the work being done by the P-16 council. Mr. Abernathy provided a list of the members of the Council (see Appendix 8 for a copy of the handout). Mr. Abernathy noted that the Council was looking at the State Scholars Initiative and stated that the initiative supports the goals of the Hathaway program in encouraging more students to complete a “rigorous” curriculum and to collect student data. The State Scholars Initiative requires 4 partner districts and 4 business partners and also requires a non-government entity to pursue the funds. Mr. Abernathy noted that Hathaway was generally more rigorous but that there were some exceptions, he provided a handout comparing Hathaway and the State Scholars Initiative (see Appendix 9 for a copy of the handout).

Mr. Abernathy noted that the Council supports the implementation of the Hathaway requirements plus the State Scholars Initiative Requirements in the 4 partner districts and that they support the implementation of the Wyoming Transcript Center. Mr. Abernathy provided a handout which had a comparison of several states and noted the percentage of 9^th graders that eventually enter college (see Appendix 10 for a copy of the handout). Mr. Abernathy stated that on of the goals is to get more than 40% of 9^th graders to pursue some type of post-secondary education.

School Configuration Guidelines

Ms. Mary Kay Hill of the Department of Education and Mr. Matthew Willmarth of the Department of Education addressed the Committee regarding school configuration. Ms. Hill provided two handouts to the Committee that describe the statewide guidelines and the current number of small schools (see Appendix 11 and Appendix 12 for copies of the handouts).

Mr. Willmarth noted that the current model based on 280 students per elementary school. Mr. Willmarth stated that the recommendation is to not allow any new schools with less than 49 students. Existing schools with less than 49 students would be "grandfathered in" until 2010, the year of the next model recalibration.

Ms. Hill noted that it was not the intention of the department to say that the district cannot educate those children but that the intention is that this will ensure that the Department will be involved in the discussion with how to proceed. Ms. Hill also noted that in some instances it may also be appropriate to consider distance education. In response to a question, Ms. Hill noted that the school configuration guidelines were not intended to affect charter schools.

Student Activity Report

Ms. Linda Oetken of the Department of Education and Ms. Mary Kay Hill of the Department of Education provided a handout of tables and calculations for the districts related to Student Activities. (see Appendix 13 for a copy of the handout). Ms. Oetken notes that each district determines the number of activities that they offer, there was no common factor on the amount of activities offered and how much was spent.

Dr. Larry Picus stated that there does not appear to be any correlation from the existing data. Dr. Picus stated that it may be necessary come up with a standardized list in order to establish a cost based model to fund student activities.

Mr. Frank Johnson of Lincoln County School District 1 noted that some of the older data may not be accurate because activities may not have been coded as activities before the change to how schools are funded.

Food Service Report

Ms. Mary Kay Hill of the Department of Education and Ms. Katie Mordhorst of the Department of Education presented a report prepared by Mr. John Perkins concerning financial services in food service programs (see Appendix 14 for a copy of the handouts). Ms. Mordhorst noted that the preliminary results indicate that salaries, benefits and cost of food have the biggest impact on the deficit. Ms. Mordhorst noted that the schools may be too small to operate a food service program on a break-even basis.

Ms. Mary Lewis of Clark County School district 1 noted that in her school, out of 500 students approximately 70 get main-line lunch, the remaining students go off-campus or purchase a-la-carte items. Ms. Lewis noted that the break even point would depend on the district, salaries, benefits and other considerations.

Mr. Beck of Freemont County School District noted that if you try to increase the price of lunches to make up the difference you end up pricing students out of participating in lunch and they will bring a packed lunch.

Summer School/Extended Day Report

Ms. Ruth Sommers of the Wyoming Department of Education, made a report to the Committee concerning Summer School and Extended Day programs. Ms. Sommers noted that the programs are making a significant impact in instruction and that they would like the programs to continue. The recommendation is to continue to fund the programs outside of the block grant funding model. Ms. Sommers provided the results of 4 surveys related to summer school to the committee (see Appendix 15 for a copy of the surveys).

Ms. Sommers stated that extended day is an extension of the summer school program and that it may be beneficial to discuss two separate pots of money, one for summer school and one for extended day. Ms. Sommers also stated that they would like to see included within the law that extended day and summer school must include innovative teaching and that summer school must include at least 15 days of instruction.

Technical Corrections

Ms. Brenda Long and Mr. Matt Willmarth provided a handout to the Committee concerning three technical corrections to the block grant model (see Appendix 16 for a copy of the handout). The three corrections are addressed in the handout materials which are periodically distributed to legislators and district administration and were presented at the Committee meeting for public comment.

ADM Computation Policy

Mr. Matt Willmarth provided a handout to the Committee regarding a proposed change to the average daily membership computation (see Appendix 17 for a copy of the handout). Mr. Willmarth noted that there are 3 current methods to calculate average daily membership. Mr. Willmarth stated that the most common method is the major fraction method which allows the schools to count students based on a major fraction of a half school day. Mr. Willmarth stated that the proposed change would eliminate the major fraction method in order to encourage districts to maximize attendance and improve accuracy. Mr. Willmarth noted that the change would decrease funding by approximately a ½ of a percent.

Mr. Don Dihle of Campbell County School District 1, stated that losing a percentage with this change and losing interest income with the proposed local resource bill would be a hit to the schools.

Mr. John Abrams stated that if this change were instituted his school may be required to reduce its high school staff by eight.

Groundskeepers

Mr. Matt Willmarth of the Department of Education addressed the Committee regarding groundskeepers (see Appendix 18 for a copy of the handout). Mr. Willmarth noted that the Department has discovered that there is an inequity in how groundskeepers are resourced in the model. Mr. Willmarth noted that the inequity comes from the formula which allows large plots of undeveloped land to generate groundskeeper resources. In response to a question Mr. Willmarth noted that it would be possible to fund groundskeepers based on school facilities standards, which would provide a ratio of facilities to land.

In response to a question, Mr. Nelson noted that it would be appropriate to consider this issue as a component of the block grant model as opposed to a school facilities issue.

Mr. Kirk Schmidt of Freemont County School District 1 suggested that this is only data from the first year and that it may be beneficial to let the model run and wait until reconfiguration.

Governor's Community College Study Commission - Update

Senator Von Flatern made a presentation to the Committee concerning the activities of the Governor's Blue Ribbon Commission on Community Colleges (see Appendix 19 for a copy of the handout). Senator Von Flatern noted that the Commission has made 35 recommendations to the Governor regarding changes to the community college system and described the recommendations and justifications for each.

Mr. Nelson noted that the next step will likely be draft legislation recommendations made by the Commission. Co-chairman Coe directed staff to prepare draft legislation on any portion of the study recommendations forwarded by the Governor.

The Committee resolved into executive session to discuss confidential information at 5:05 pm.

The Committee reconvened in general session at 6:00 pm.

Meeting Adjournment

There being no further business, Co-Chairman McOmie adjourned the meeting at 6:00 pm.

Respectfully submitted,

Senator Henry H.R. “Hank” Coe, Co-Chairman Representative Del McOmie, Co-Chairman

Appendix	Appendix Topic	Appendix Description	Appendix Provider
1	Committee Sign-In Sheet	Lists meeting attendees	Legislative Service Office
2	Committee Meeting Agenda	Provides an outline of the topics the Committee planned to address at meeting	Legislative Service Office
3	Local Resources	Issue Brief	Legislative Service Office
4	Local Resources	Cash Flow Estimates	Legislative Service Office
5	Local Resources	Draft bill (08LSO-0046.W2)	Legislative Service Office
6	Local Resources	Cash flow estimates with proposed changes	Legislative Service Office
7	CTE	New Directions for CTE in Wyoming	Department of Education
8	Wyoming P-16	Membership chart	Mr. Rollin Abernethy
9	Wyoming P-16	Wyoming Courses of Study	Mr. Rollin Abernethy
10	Wyoming P-16	Student Pipeline Comparison	Mr. Rollin Abernethy
11	School Configuration	School Configuration Guidelines	Department of Education
12	School Configuration	Wyoming small schools	Department of Education
13	Student Activities	District expenditures for student activities	Department of Education
14	Food Service	Preliminary survey results	Mr. John Perkins
15	Summer school	Zoomerang survey results	Department of Education
16	Technical corrections	Summary of Technical Corrections	Legislative Service Office
17	Average Daily Membership	Proposed changes to Average Daily Membership	Department of Education
18	Groundskeepers	Wyoming Funding Model - Groundskeepers	Department of Education
19	Community Colleges	Community Colleges Commission Report	Commission