Wyoming lawmakers passed a bill during this year’s session to cut property taxes for most homeowners. But for Central Wyoming College (CWC), changes in statewide property taxes could mean losing roughly $1 million of its annual budget.
Senate File 69 went into effect immediately after it was signed by Gov. Mark Gordon. It created a blanket 25% reduction to single-family homeowners’ first $1 million of their home’s fair market value.
Communities across the state are starting to calculate how the corresponding loss of property tax revenue will impact their budgets and services. Community colleges across the state are also likely to feel the dip.
CWC President Brad Tyndall said the property tax changes combined with ongoing inflation has put the school in a difficult situation.
“ It's getting harder and harder for us to find things to cut,” he said. “Frankly, we're at the point now where we're eating our seed corn. If you cut a program that's bringing in revenue and serving your community, you're going, ‘How can I cut that?’”
Community colleges in Wyoming are not constitutionally protected in the way that the University of Wyoming or public K-12 schools are, which has prompted conversations about how to address a nearly $100 million combined deficit in recent legislative sessions.
Tyndall said that the eight community colleges in the state are all feeling the impact of inflation, but are expecting different levels of impact from the property tax cuts. He said CWC is getting hit especially hard.
“Central Wyoming College has the highest percentage of at-risk population and we don't have coal mines in our backyard, so it's a different mix,” he said.
Because the school serves such a large population of at-risk students, Tyndall said CWC qualifies for a significant amount of federal funding tied to supporting that demographic. But he said that many of the grants that the college has previously tapped into aren’t up for renewal or are uncertain moving forward.
That includes the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Innovation Stronger Economy (RISE) grant, the U.S. Department of Education’s Native American-Serving Nontribal Institutions Program and the U.S Department of Labor’s Strengthening Community Colleges Training Grants Program.
Tyndall pointed to a recent CWC return-on-investment (ROI) study and emphasized that the college’s emphasis on workforce training programs has a big role to play in economic resilience for the state.
“ Cutting us is not a strategically smart thing to do in terms of supporting your communities or building your economies or meeting the goals of Wyoming,” he said.
The state’s eight community colleges each conducted economic impact studies at the request of the Wyoming Association of Community College Trustees. The study for CWC found that one out of every 39 jobs in the college’s service area is supported by the activities of CWC and its students.
Tyndall said, “It is safe to say that all the [community] colleges showed similarly positive ROIs.”
Beth Monteiro is the executive director of the Central Wyoming College Foundation, which is the fundraising arm for the college. She said the lack of available federal grants is “a little bit worrying” but said private funders are pitching in.
“We definitely have had some incredible gifts come in,” she said. “One of them is to help backfill some of the scholarship support that the college itself would have to cut.”
The school also increased fees by $4 per credit to try and fill the funding gap, which Tyndall estimates will bring in a little over $100,000. But it’s also looking at cuts to professional development and travel, as well as exploring voluntary employee attrition incentive programs.
CWC enrolls roughly 2,500 students and employs about 450 people total in Fremont, Teton and Hot Springs counties, according to numbers shared by CWC Marketing and Public Relations Director Jennifer Marshall.
Tyndall said that CWC employees are a “true asset” and likened the budget-tightening process to deciding how to tear off a band-aid: fast and painfully, or slowly, with less hurt but more anxiety.
“It’s stressful,” he said. “I really apologize to my staff for this stressful time.”
Tyndall remains optimistic but admitted that the impacts of ongoing inflation and property tax-related budget losses are accumulating.
“ I wouldn't say it's the last straw, because this camel isn't going down,” he said. “ But it's another straw where it feels like a last straw, because it's adding up.”
The CWC Board of Trustees will discuss next steps and share updates at its next meeting on May 21.
