Wyo. Schools See the Upside of Fuel Prices

Rising natural-gas and oil prices have left energy-rich Wyoming in a financial position that state officials usually can only dream of— a $1.8 billion surplus projected for this year, and barely enough ways to spend the money in the sparsely populated state.

Education has received much of the bounty. The state has set aside just over $1 billion to pay for K-12 education for fiscal 2007, up about 24 percent from the $841 million projected to be spent in the current fiscal year. The state, which is on a biennial budget cycle, has a total budget of $7.6 billion for two years.

“If I were choosing to be anywhere in education, Wyoming would be the place to be,” said Jim McBride, the state...