A new law in Wyoming meant to safeguard the right to keep and bear arms is coming with some unintended consequences, according to some local school districts.
Earlier this year the legislature approved HB 172, which repeals many of the state’s “gun-free zones.” Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon declined to sign the bill into law but allowed it to take effect without his signature, though not without taking several swipes at lawmakers for “dropping a political bomb” on the state and accusing them of acting to accumulate power rather than expand the right of self-defense.
Under HB 172, gun owners with a valid concealed carry permit issued by the state can carry in a number of places previously off-limits, including “any public elementary or secondary school facility.” Now, as school districts around the state are changing their policies to comport with state law, several of them are complaining that compliance comes with a hefty price tag.
The topic surfaced repeatedly Tuesday and Wednesday at a Casper meeting of the Select Committee on School Finance Recalibration.
It started when the business manager of Teton County School District No. 1, Kristen Mayo, said the district had to buy a $35,000 rider because of the introduction of conceal carry at school.
State House Speaker Chip Neiman, R-Hulett, voiced surprise at this, saying, “Up ’til now, our laws only kept out law-abiding gun owners.”
Mayo countered.
“It’s really a difference between passing legislation intended to benefit the community versus the real-life issue of how an insurance company is going to look at that,” she said. “In order to renew our liability insurance this is what we have to do.”
Mayo later clarified that the district’s overall liability insurance sits at more than $500,000, which renders the rate hike less noticeable, some attendees said.
… Uinta County School District No. 1 has been feeling the rate hikes from conceal-carry permissions for about eight years, John Williams, chief financial officer for the district, told the committee Wednesday.
That district was the first in the state to opt into a conceal carry policy for its staff, in 2017.
Its then policy-carrier HUB International declined to insure the district, said Williams. Other carriers also bailed, he added.
“It started to just limit the number of carriers,” he said, adding that eventually, the district selected Lloyd’s of London.
Insurance rates have been on the rise for years regardless, said Williams, from $120,000 three or four years ago to $180,000.
The district bought a rider for $16,000 to account for its concealed-carrying employees after passing its standalone policy. It’s looking at another $32,000 in light of the new state law, Williams confirmed under the questioning of State Rep. Mike Yin, D-Jackson.
Representatives from at least one school district have said they haven’t seen an increase in insurance rates after passing its own policy allowing for concealed carry back in 2019, but “multiple other districts” reported their insurance carriers have been jacking up their rates or requiring additional riders to cover any gun-related incidents on campus.
Republican Rep. Tom Kelly says he’s not sure whether the rates are increasing because of real risk, political expedience, or outside factors that are increasing liability insurance costs overall, but argued that in any case the increased costs are “a small part” of a school district’s overall budget.
That might be true, but if insurance companies really are turning the screws on these school districts then it might be time for the legislature to act. We’ve seen states like Louisiana and Texas ban financial firms from doing business with state and local governments if they discriminate against the firearms industry, so maybe Wyoming lawmakers should take a page from that book and tell insurers that if they’re charging more for policies that recognize our right to keep and bear arms, they’re not going to be allowed to operate inside the state.
There is a real risk to doing that, though. Wyoming doesn’t have nearly as many residents as Texas, and some insurance companies may be willing to write off the state rather than comply with the legislature’s demands.
I’m honestly not sure what the answer is here, but if the legislature’s carry policies are impacting the budgets of local school districts then it seems to me that the legislature has a duty to act. Maybe grants to districts to cover the increased cost of insurance would be a better route instead of targeting the insurance companies themselves, but in any case something needs to be done to give these districts some relief while still respecting we the people’s right to bear arms.
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