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Senate Education Committee lays Hathaway Scholarship amendment bill back for clarifications
Summary
The committee laid House Bill 36 back after the Department of Education said it could not implement the bill as written; the measure would expand the Hathaway Scholarship definition to cover certain long‑term vocational certificates that combine low‑credit coursework and on‑the‑job training.
The Senate Education Committee on Feb. 20 laid House Bill 36 back for further work after department staff said the bill, as written, would create implementation challenges for the Hathaway Scholarship.
Representative Dan (last name not specified in transcript) Harshman introduced the bill and described a constituent case in which a student at Central Wyoming College was pursuing an electrician certificate. Harshman said many construction‑trade certificates require extensive on‑the‑job training and only limited credit hours per semester over several years, which the existing Hathaway Scholarship framework did not clearly accommodate.
Harshman said the bill makes a “definitional change” to what qualifies as a certificate for Hathaway‑fund eligibility so the department can, through rulemaking, accommodate certificates that result in a license, permit or certificate even if the training includes substantial on‑the‑job components. He characterized the likely fiscal impact as small: “It will be 0 impact as far as that to the fund,” and later estimated the change might affect “maybe 10, 15, 20 individuals.”
Wanda Maloney of the Department of Education said the Hathaway Scholarship presently requires students to meet three criteria, including that coursework be credit‑bearing, maintenance of satisfactory academic progress, and continuous enrollment. The department’s Jennifer Lahiff (who oversees Hathaway) told the committee the definitions of continuous enrollment and satisfactory academic progress are established in department rules and identified the statutory reference for those rules during questioning (quoted in the transcript as “21 16 13 oh 1 a Romanette 14” / “20 one‑sixteen 13 oh 1 a 24 sorry 14”). Lahiff told senators the department “does not believe that rules would effectively fix it as written” and later, when pressed on implementability, said, “no, I do not believe we can as written.”
Senator Scott asked about fiscal impact on the Hathaway fund, noting the scholarship’s share of tuition has declined over time; Representative Harshman and other committee members pointed to the fund’s growth from earlier levels and suggested the fund could absorb modest growth in demand, but committee members asked for a formal amendment to clarify how the department would measure continuous enrollment and satisfactory academic progress for non‑traditional certificate pathways.
Committee members agreed to have the sponsor work with the Department of Education to draft implementing language. The committee laid the bill back and planned to consider amendments at the next meeting (noted in transcript as carrying the bill over to Monday).
