Wyoming lawmakers—many of whom often claim to want to “save our children”—are standing by as a bureaucratic boondoggle strips 7,500 kids of their Medicaid health insurance.
Wyoming’s public sector has struggled to retain quality workers in recent years as lawmakers have slashed wages and the political climate has grown toxic. Now, officials driven by radical religious agendas are removing experienced local leaders, including a longtime public library director and an award-winning school superintendent.
The benefits of preschool are clear, but middle-class and rural Wyoming families face huge hurdles enrolling their kids. Most states have public preschool, but not Wyoming—and trying to encourage lawmakers who are busy arguing over hot-button national issues to do something about it is an exercise in frustration and disappointment.
So-called “school vouchers” or “education savings accounts” hand over taxpayer money to parents who pull their kids out of public schools and instead enroll them in private, religious, or home schools. The Legislature’s Joint Education Committee will hear such a proposal this week, despite the fact that the Wyoming Constitution prohibits public money from being spent at religious institutions or given to schools that have zero oversight.
Workers at a Starbucks in Cheyenne will vote on Monday whether to join more than 340 other stores across the U.S. and become the first unionized location in Wyoming. The baristas allege a hostile workplace and erratic scheduling, but also are part of a new uptick of organized labor in Wyoming.
More than one third of Wyoming’s population lives in a “childcare desert,” and the cost for those who can find it can equal a second mortgage. While other states take steps to address this nationwide issue, Wyoming lawmakers drag their feet finding solutions.
Early childhood education sets kids up for success. Children who go to preschool do better in K-12—requiring less help and driving down overall education costs—and they go on to earn more and require less government assistance. But two-thirds of Wyoming kids don’t attend preschool, and the state does not invest a dime in it, creating an early-life hurdle for many children that is both costly and difficult to overcome.
In the first of a three-part series on barriers to opportunity that young people and families face in our state, Better Wyoming looks at the Legislature’s recent efforts—and failures—to address the growing problem of mental illness among Wyoming K-12 students.
Susan Gore, founder of the Wyoming Liberty group and one of the state’s wealthiest political donors, is under investigation by the FBI for making campaign contributions via spies she hired to secretly record her political enemies.
The “small government” group voted to spend nearly a billion dollars each year of Wyoming taxpayer money to prevent private businesses from requiring masks or vaccines.
Making sure electricians are safe? Yawn. Training more rural nurses? Booo-ring. Scholarships for community college students to learn trades? What a snooze fest!
These are just some of the bills that House Majority Floor Leader Chip Neiman singlehandedly killed by not allowing them to proceed to the House floor for debate.
With a windfall of tax revenue from high gas prices, the Wyoming Legislature increased state employee and teacher pay and funded some economic development. But lawmakers failed to meaningfully address the state’s growing housing crisis, and they still would rather invest billions in Wall Street than our own local communities.
