Senate committee advances bill to boost K‑12 major maintenance funding after amendment debate

Senator Landon moved Senate File 34 — a bill that changes how the state calculates K‑12 major and routine maintenance funding — out of the Committee of the Whole with a recommendation that it pass. The bill would increase allowable educational square footage from 115% to 135% of statewide building adequacy standards and raise the replacement-value multiplier used in the major maintenance model from 2% to 2.5%.

The bill matters because it changes the base formulas the state uses to calculate maintenance funding for school buildings across Wyoming, changing both the square footage counted and the annual percentage applied to replacement value. Senator Landon said the changes would help extend the useful life of school buildings: "We are on a bell curve right now, fellow senators, of about 50 years. We'd like for those buildings to last for 75 years." He also described long‑term fiscal impacts, saying implementing the changes "could save the state a couple of $1,000,000,000" over…