DAVIS, Justice.
[¶ 1] The Board of Trustees of Laramie County School District No. One (District)
[¶ 2] This appeal turns on a single question of statutory construction, which we restate as follows:
[¶ 3] During the 2011 to 2012 school year, Kinstler was a continuing contract teacher
[¶ 4] As a result of his attorney's participation in another conference call on June 11, 2012, the hearing officer scheduled a prehearing conference for August 6, with the hearing to begin a week later. Although the attorney Kinstler retained withdrew on or about June 25, a two-day hearing took place as scheduled on August 13 and 14, with Kinstler representing himself. On September 4, 2012, the hearing officer issued findings of fact, conclusions of law, and a recommendation that the District accept the superintendent's proposal that Kinstler be terminated.
[¶ 5] The Board of Trustees voted to accept the recommendation at a meeting on September 17, 2012, and District administration advised Kinstler of this the following day by letter. He did not seek judicial review of that decision. Kinstler was paid his normal salary from August 15, 2012 (the date he would have started to work) through the date that the Board acted on the recommendation to terminate him.
[¶ 6] Nearly a year later, on September 12, 2013, Kinstler sued the District, claiming that it failed to pay him the full salary
[¶ 7] Kinstler's salary claim rested on the language of Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 21-7-106, which at the end of the 2011-2012 school year
(Emphasis added). Kinstler contended that the notice of recommendation of termination addressed in subsection (a) was given on March 30, 2012—during the 2011-2012 school year—but that the notice of termination addressed in subsection (b) referred to the letter announcing the District's decision to uphold the recommended termination on September 17, 2012-during the 2012-2013 school year. He argued that even though he
[¶ 8] The District argued that the legislature used the terms interchangeably—that is, that both terms referred to the notice given by the superintendent at the end of the 2011-2012 academic year. It also pointed out that Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 21-7-110(g) provides that a continuing contract teacher's employment must be terminated by a "written order" of the Board.
[¶ 9] The district court agreed with Kinstler, partially granted his summary judgment motion, and on December 31, 2014 entered an order with respect to his salary and benefits claim
[¶ 10] Courts construe statutes as a matter of law. Consequently, we review de novo with the goal of determining legislative intent. That goal is best achieved by reading any particular statute or statutory provision in harmony with related statutes with the same subject or purpose as a whole and giving appropriate effect to the plain, ordinary meaning of every word, clause and sentence. Rock v. Lankford, 2013 WY 61, ¶¶ 17, 19, 301 P.3d 1075, 1080 (Wyo.2013). Courts should presume that lawmakers intend related statutes to operate consistently and harmoniously. Therefore, parts of them should not be viewed in isolation, but should be interpreted by comparing them with other parts or sections. 2A Norman Singer & Shambie Singer, Sutherland Statutory Contruction § 46:5 (7th ed. updated November 2014).
[¶ 11] Before we begin our discussion of the issue this appeal presents, it is important to recognize an issue that is not involved. Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 21-7-110(d) and (g) set strict time frames for disposing of disputed recommendations for termination. Section 110(d) provides that a hearing officer "shall" set a date for hearing within five days of being selected. The same section provides that "[i]n no event shall the hearing commence on a date later than forty-five (45) days" after notice of intent to suspend, dismiss, or terminate a continuing contract teacher. Subsection (g) provides that the school board "shall" issue a written order within twenty days of receipt of the hearing officer's recommendation.
[¶ 12] In this case, Mr. Kinstler waived those time frames, and the parties did not directly address them in this appeal.
[¶ 13] Kinstler's salary claim rested on the notion that § 21-7-106(a) speaks of a notice of recommendation of termination, while subsection (b) of that statute refers to a notice of termination. He argued that the use of two different phrases indicated that the legislature intended to refer to two different events, the latter of which took place during the 2012-2013 school year. The district court accepted that reasoning and further differentiated the two phrases by referring to the latter as a notice of "actual" termination. The court therefore concluded that Kinstler's termination was not effective until the end of the 2012-2013 school year, and that he was entitled to be paid for that entire school year pursuant to subsection (b).
[¶ 14] That reasoning is certainly consistent with the tenet of statutory construction that when different words are used in the same or a related statute, they are usually intended to have different meanings. See In re Kite Ranch, LLC, 2010 WY 83, ¶ 20, 234 P.3d 351, 359 (Wyo.2010); 2A Singer, supra, § 46:6. However, a closer look reveals a different intent.
[¶ 15] As the United States Supreme Court framed a similar concern more than eighty years ago:
Helvering v. New York Trust Co., 292 U.S. 455, 464, 54 S.Ct. 806, 808-09, 78 L.Ed. 1361 (1934). See also Leach v. FDIC, 860 F.2d 1266, 1270 (5th Cir.1988) ("[E]ven apparently plain words, divorced from the context in which they arise and in which their creators intended them to function, may not accurately convey the meaning the creators intended to impart."); 2A Singer, supra, § 46:5.
[¶ 16] When we look at Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 21-7-110, we are compelled to reach a different result than the district court did. Before the 2011 amendment to that statute became effective on July 1, 2012, subsection (e)—including the parts we have enclosed in brackets below—read as follows:
(Emphasis added). The amendment removed the bracketed material.
[¶ 18] Also notable is one of the changes made to § 21-7-110(c) by the 2011 legislation. Prior to that legislation, the first part of subsection (c), less the portions we have placed in brackets, read in pertinent part as set out below. The 2011 amendment added the bracketed material.
(Emphasis added). As we have previously observed, this Court may examine an amendment to a statute to help evaluate the legislative intent which may have accompanied the statute's wording in its original form. Dep't of Revenue & Taxation v. Irvine, 589 P.2d 1295, 1300 (Wyo.1979).
[¶ 19] The 2011 amendment made one substantive change that requires the hearing officer in these cases to be assigned from the Office of Administrative Hearings. The remaining change appears to be a merely stylistic housekeeping amendment designed to conform the wording of this subsection to that which, as noted above, already existed in subsection (e). See generally State ex rel. West Park Hosp. Dist. v. Skoric, 2014 WY 41, ¶ 20, 321 P.3d 334, 342 (Wyo.2014); Nylen v. Dayton, 770 P.2d 1112, 1116 (Wyo. 1989) (both recognizing that amendments often incorporate additions and deletions which reflect a concern with style, rather than an intent to change the meaning of a word or phrase).
[¶ 20] The amendment confirmed the legislature's intended use of the phrase "notice of termination" to refer to the notice of recommendation of termination, not to some final document issued by the board of trustees after reviewing the hearing officer's suggested disposition of the case. That latter document has, since 1993,
[¶ 21] Termination of employment is thus through a "written order," rather than a "notice." It happened in this case that the district gave notice of the decision by letter, but that is not what the statute required.
[¶ 22] Although it played no discernible part in the district court's decision, Kinstler points out that he was paid and provided benefits from August 15, 2012 through September 17, 2012. We are unable to attribute any significance to the District's decision to provide him with compensation pending the outcome of the hearing and Board action based upon the hearing examiner's recommendation. Appellant's counsel advised the district court that the District had a policy requiring employees to be paid pending a board decision upholding termination to
[¶ 23] Finally, Kinstler argued below that the purpose of the notice provisions of the statutes referred to above was to assure that he had time to find other employment if he was terminated. The district court found this contention persuasive, relying on Borman v. Sweetwater County School Dist. No. 2, 627 P.2d 1364, 1366 (Wyo.1981). However, Borman dealt with the requirement that an initial contract teacher be notified by March 15 (now April 15 under Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 21-7-105) if the school district did not intend to renew her contract, which it was entitled to do without a showing of statutory grounds. This Court held that the purpose of requiring notice was to give the teacher time to seek employment elsewhere in the next school year. Borman, 627 P.2d at 1366. We are able to resolve the issue presented to us on the language of the statute and the amendments to it, and we therefore do not need to determine whether the reasoning of Borman extends to termination of a continuing contract teacher for the reasons stated in § 21-7-110(a).
[¶ 24] We conclude that the district court misconstrued the term "notice of termination" to mean something other than the notice of recommendation of termination. The legislature used the terms interchangeably. Kinstler's termination was therefore effective at the end of the 2011-2012 school year, and he had no statutory right to compensation following that date.
[¶ 25] We reverse and vacate the district court's order granting Kinstler the value of his salary and benefits for the 2012-2013 academic year.
