Laramie at the Legislature: UW’s budget requests reduced by 85%

Support for ongoing coal research and a new medical education partnership are top priorities for UW. Meanwhile, $1.5 million in athletics funding is on the line.

The latest iteration of this year’s supplemental budget bill puts University of Wyoming requests at $2.64 million — a far cry from UW’s original ask of more than $18 million.

The supplemental budget bill still has a long journey ahead of it, and lawmakers in both chambers could increase or decrease UW’s cut of the state budget. They could also attach conditions to its use of state dollars.

Last year, it was the budget bill — rather than any other individual piece of legislation — that led to the university’s complete purge of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. Similar language could wind up in the final version of this year’s supplemental budget bill.

Both the House and the Senate will consider budget amendments today.

From more than $18 to less than $2.7

The state of Wyoming passes a two-year budget during its sessions in even-numbered years. In 2024, lawmakers passed a budget outlining the money allocated for the next two years to each government agency — including Wyoming’s only university, which receives the bulk of its funding from the state.

But these biannual allocations can’t account for every expense or need, so agencies prepare supplemental requests for the sessions in odd-numbered years, such as this one, when the legislature’s central focus is on issues other than the budget.

As it crafted its own supplemental requests this summer, the University of Wyoming initially landed on an $18.1 million total ask. The governor slashed most of that, recommending to lawmakers they approve roughly $4.1 million of it.

The $4.1 million included $500,000 for a medical education partnership with the University of Utah, $1.5 million to backfill athletics funding that will no longer be forthcoming from the NCAA, and $2.09 million to cover inflationary expenses related to an ongoing coal research project.

UW officials defended these requests during a Joint Appropriations Committee hearing in December, and that committee has now filed its own recommendations in the form of Senate File 1 and House Bill 1, both titled: “General government appropriations.”

Each chamber starts with an identical version of the JAC’s recommended budget, but will debate and edit their copy as they see fit. Before the session concludes, differences between the bills must be hammered out by a conference committee of both representatives and senators before a final supplemental budget bill can be sent to the governor for his signature and line-item vetoes.

The budget, as it stands, includes funding for the Utah medical education partnership (raising the appropriation from half a million to $550,000), and raises the School of Energy Resources budget by $2.09 million for the coal research project.

The budget bill drops the $1.5 million requested for athletics, meaning the university’s overall request has been whittled from the original $18.1 million ask down to less than $2.7 million.

Albany County Sen. Gary Crum (SD-10) plans to bring an amendment adding the $1.5 million back in.

Another proposed amendment, with no local sponsors, would give an additional $500,000 to the University of Wyoming Center for Blockchain and Digital Innovation “provided that the center develops software for the secretary of state’s office” to support online business registration and “lobbyist registration and renewal.”

In the House, Laramie Rep. Ken Chestek (HD-13) plans to bring an amendment giving UW an additional $3 million for athletic scholarships for women.

If each amendment is approved without alteration, it would raise UW’s supplemental payout to $7.64 million.

DEI in the budget bill

In addition to ruling on these funding requests, the Joint Appropriations Committee also reinserted vetoed language from last year’s biennium budget bill.

In 2024, lawmakers passed a budget footnote forbidding the use of state funds on an Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion or “on any diversity, equity and inclusion program, activity or function.”

Gov. Mark Gordon left the prohibition on the office specifically, but vetoed the clause about any “program, activity or function.”

The 2025 supplemental budget bill adds that language back in.

An amendment planned by Democratic Rep. Ivan Posey (HD-33) would eliminate the DEI language altogether, freeing the university to use state dollars on any diversity-oriented efforts it favors.

But the budget bill is far from the only proposed legislation attacking diversity programs at UW.

House Bill 147, which has cleared the lower chamber, would prohibit government agencies — including the University of Wyoming, community colleges and public schools — from “engaging in” any program, requiring any training, or promoting any policy that meets the bill’s own definition of “diversity, equity and inclusion.”

Senate File 103, which has been cleared its initial committee hearing, would forbid UW from requiring any course that discusses the connection between “contemporary American society” and a laundry list of social science concepts — including “critical theory” and “whiteness” but also “unconscious bias,” “microaggressions” and “systemic racism.”

UW would still be able to host courses that discuss these topics, but they must in no way be required for graduation.

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