Please Note: The following summaries of legislation enacted during the 2004 Legislative Session were prepared by the Legal Services Division Staff for internal use by the Legislative Service Office.

This report is not an official publication of the Wyoming Legislature and does not purport to be an official statement of legislative intent concerning any measure enacted by the Legislature.

The bill summaries contained in this report were prepared as an aid to locating enacted legislation and as a brief recap of the major provisions of each bill. While the information provided in these summaries is accurate, the summaries are not intended as a detailed abstract and reference should be made to the enacted bills for more complete information.

Bill No.: HB0093 Drafter: DRN

LSO No.: 04LSO-0250.C3 Effective Date: 7/1/2004

Enrolled Act No.: HEA0067

Chapter No.: 108

Prime Sponsor: Joint Education Interim Committee

Catch Title: School finance-amendments.

Subject: State assistance to school districts for operation of required education programs.

Summary/Major Elements:

· Permanently establishes funding for reading assessment and intervention programs outside the cost-based funding model;

· Implements adjustment for the experience, responsibility and seniority of classified staff responding to the Court, adopted at this time due to prior insufficiency of data;

· Refines the at-risk adjustment by expanding the unduplicated count of limited English speaking children and free and reduced price lunch children, the trigger implementing application of the adjustment, to include "mobile" students;

· Refines the small school adjustment by implementing multiple prototypes based upon school level data, established for various enrollment levels and school configurations;

· To the extent necessary, holds school districts harmless to 2001-2002 guarantee levels (although the financial impact of this provision is greatly diminished by other modifications to model adjustments);

· Continues use of the Wyoming cost-of-living index as the basis for the regional cost adjustment;

· Provides assistance for provision of full-day kindergarten programs outside the cost-based model, funded for school year 2004-2005 only;

· Provides assistance for summer school programs through a competitive grant program providing intervention and remediation instruction during summer months and for Saturday and before and after school programs, funded outside the cost-based model for school year 2004-2005 only;

· Increases charter school minimal funding guarantee from 95% of generated prototypical dollars per ADM to 95% of foundation program guarantee which includes all adjustments except special education and transportation.

Comments:

· Requires study of collocated schools and additional refinement of small schools, and imposes a number of data collection and reporting requirements including additional information on programs serving LES children, school level utility costs, department of education implementation and administration of specified programs and expenditures.