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Wyoming

The Alliance for Early Success’ key ally in Wyoming is the Wyoming Community Foundation (WYCF), a statewide grantmaking organization that includes the Wyoming Women’s Foundation and the Wyoming Afterschool Alliance. WYCF also works with the Wyoming Survey & Analysis Center to collect KidsCount data on child and family wellbeing.

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2023 State Early Childhood Policy Environment and Progress

State early childhood policy progress is dependent both on the state’s policy environment and the numerous efforts — by those listed on this page and many others — who worked both independently and collaboratively to achieve wins for young children.

Early Childhood  Landscape:

Research shows that family economic security is foundational to children’s overall wellbeing. Research also shows that widespread disparities in opportunity (especially by race) drive wide disparities in outcomes. States with policies that offer strong support to young children and their families are more likely to see 1) declining numbers of children in low-income households and 2) low racial disparity among those children. 

Young Children in Low-Income Households: Increasing

Approximately 36% (21,000) of the state’s children 0-8 live in households below 200% FPL (2021). This number represents an increase in percentage from 32% (23,000) in 2016.1

Racial Disparity Among Young Children Living in Low-Income Households: High

Black, Hispanic/Latino, and Native children aged 0-8 are significantly more likely to be living in households below 200% FPL than are Asian and non-Hispanic White children.2

Advocacy Landscape:

State General Fund Appropriations: Growing 

Wyoming enacted a biennial budget for fiscal 2023 and fiscal 2024 during the 2022 session. Governor Mark Gordon signed a supplemental budget for the biennium into law on February 24, 2023, setting general fund appropriation levels for the biennium at $3.55 billion. The budget is based on net general fund revenues of $3.55 billion, including a $868 million transfer from the Budget Reserve Account (BRA) authorized in the 2022 Budget Bill. The School Foundation Program budget (separate from the general fund) provides for $1.97 billion in appropriations for the biennium, which is based on net revenues of $2.19 billion. The state is projecting to have a balance of $115 million in the BRA and a $1.49 billion balance in the Legislative Stabilization Reserve Account at the end of the biennium. The governor noted that the budget saves money while also addressing the needs of Wyoming’s people.3

Key Revenue Sources:

    • State Sales Tax (4.0%)

Political Alignment: Aligned Republican

During the 2023 session, the state’s Senate and House were both Republican controlled. The state’s Governor was also a Republican.4

Types of Ballot Measures Available:5  Three

    • Voter-initiated state statute – Earns a spot on the ballot when sponsors collect signatures according to the laws governing the initiative process in Wyoming.
    • Legislature-initiated constitutional amendment – A constitutional amendment that appears on a state’s ballot as a ballot measure because the state legislature in that state voted to put it before the voters.
    • Veto referendum – When citizens of Wyoming disagree with a statute or legislative enacted, a veto referendum can be placed on the statewide ballot.

Key State Policy Advocacy Organizations Include:

Early Childhood Policy Advocacy Multi-State Initiatives Include:6

2023 Policy Progress:

The 2023 Legislative session saw four proposed bills focused specifically on early childhood topics. Only one of those bills moved forward, but the discussions on early childhood topics during the session attracted significant attention from the legislature. The Joint Education Committee will be taking up early childhood education and child-care providers as an interim topic.

Highlights from the state’s early childhood policy advocacy community include:7

The Joint Education Committee will study ECE and childcare providers to develop an understanding of how well students are prepared to enter kindergarten. The topic will include a review of state agencies involved in early childhood programs, the governance structure, child development centers, and the current childcare infrastructure. The Committee will also review prior studies.

HB004 extends postpartum Medicaid coverage from 60 days to a year, allowing new mothers to access postpartum checkups, screenings, breastfeeding assistance, behavioral health support and a range of other services.

The Wyoming Early Childhood State Advisory Council is finalizing a Kindergarten Transition toolkit to help support families and communities across Wyoming as young children transition out of programs and homes into the K-12 system.

Ongoing Grantee Areas of Advocacy:

The Alliance’s lead grantee in Wyoming, Wyoming Community Foundation, is working to advance early childhood policies in several areas that align with the Alliance’s birth-through-eight policy framework

Early Care and Education

Preschool and Pre-K

Child and
Maternal Health

Maternal Health

Infant & Child Health

Family
Supports

Family Economic Security

Early Childhood Infrastructure

Financing 

RECENT ADVOCACY SNAPSHOT:

Wyoming Coalition Comes Together to Offer New Support for Early Childhood Educators

The Wyoming Early Childhood Professional Learning Collaborative — initiated when the Wyoming Early Childhood Outreach Network (WYECON) and Wyoming Kids First started to explore opportunities to improve the quality of early childhood education in the state — is working full steam to improve the opportunities for Wyoming’s youngest learners by supporting the professional development of their early childhood educators.

Read More »

NOTES:

1 Kids Count Data Center, Annie E. Casey Foundation, Children Ages 0 to 8 Below 200 Percent Poverty, November, 2022 

2 National Center for Children in Poverty, Children Ages 0 to 8 Below 200 Percent Poverty, March 2023, NCCP analysis of ACS 1-Year Estimates – Public Use Microdata Sample 2021

3 National Association of State Budget Officers, Summaries of Fiscal Year 2024 Enacted Budgets, October 11, 2023.

4 National Conference of State Legislatures, 2023 State & Legislative Partisan Composition, February 28, 2023.

5 Ballotpedia, Ballot Measures by State, Kids Count Data Center, retrieved May, 2023.

6 Alliance for Early Success, Multi-State Initiatives for Early Childhood Policy Advocacy, April, 2022.

7 Alliance for Early Success, State-Wide Advocacy Highlights Survey, April-August, 2023.  

More State Policy Data:

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More State Demographic Data:

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