The student population at Jackson Hole High School has exploded in the past few years. It’s running out of room. To make space for students, the administration stripped hallways of their lockers. But that created a new problem: some students lack personal storage spaces.

The Wyoming Legislature is ironing out differences between the House and Senate budgets this week. After the second Joint Conference Committee — also known as a Free Committee — negotiated funding that could help Jackson Hole High School, among others, to better serve their students, the Wyoming House and Senate are preparing to cast their respective votes on the funds.

Rep. Landon Brown (R-Cheyenne), Chairman of the Select School Facilities Committee, said funding was in limbo after the Senate stripped school capital construction funding by $111 million in the process of combining the budget.

"What they yanked out, and what they defeated on the floor on the Senate side," said Brown, "was any construction or planning for new schools for the next two years."

When the Senate's amendments were kicked back to the House, members of the first Joint Conference Committee began working to put the funding back into the budget.

"And the House defeated that amendment," said Brown. "So, it sits inside of the budget process to determine whether or not we'll be able to make amends and have a compromise, and whether or not we'll actually be able to build schools across the state."

"We're going to fight for them," Brown added, "because this is only going to be a problem that grows as we start moving forward as well."

Critics of the move said that it was unfair to single out Jackson Hole high School and Rock Springs High School since many others are also in need of major repairs or, in some cases, new facilities.

Brown said that criticism is fair, but he felt that the need was urgent.

"It's something that we're going to have to face one way or the other," said Brown. "Yes, it definitely subverts the process in a way. But I would also say that it's not abnormal for us to subvert the process. And we have the ability to do that. We write the laws and we can certainly adjust those laws as we see fit."

The Free Committee voted to add the funding back into the budget. Both chambers will vote on the changes by Friday.

This reporting was made possible by a grant from the Corporation For Public Broadcasting, supporting state government coverage in the state. Wyoming Public Media and Jackson Hole Community Radio are partnering to cover state issues both on air and online.