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Every Wyoming legislative session contains fireworks, and this year was no exception. Lawmakers added to the drama this go around by saving the pyrotechnics for the very last day, grand finale style, when House and Senate negotiators let the gavel fall without reaching a compromise on the education finance legislation, House Bill 173 – School finance funding-2. House Bill 173, in its original version, was the legislative product of the education recalibration process that normally occurs every five years. That process, in turn, is the p...
In the last four years the federal government has both cut government revenue and dramatically increased spending. It’s an unsettling combination, the precise long-term results of which will be debated by economists like myself until the cows come home. But at least one thing is already certain: The fiscal impact of all the federal COVID-19 spending over the last year warrants much more public attention than it has thus far received. When the pandemic arrived 12 months ago the uncertainty surrounding its economic impacts prompted an u...
The $1.9 trillion stimulus plan’s full implications for Wyoming are too numerous and nuanced to know yet, but the import of one facet is already clear: The roughly $1.3 billion it provides Wyoming’s state, county and local governments will go a long way toward alleviating their current fiscal crises. President Joe Biden signed the American Rescue Plan Act into law last week and the details of this latest federal stimulus are finally emerging. Observers are already making comparisons to the CARES Act passed just under a year ago. Many que...
Not all tax bills are created equal. Some increase the amount of money flowing into the state’s coffers with new taxes, higher rates or repealed exemptions. Others, however, reduce the state’s income with new exemptions and credits or lower rates. Few will be surprised to learn that the latter far outnumber the former in a typical Wyoming legislative session. But this year is far from typical. Wyoming is wrestling with a historic revenue crisis and many of the state’s cornerstone industries remain on the ropes. How has that affected lawma...
Some hefty matters await Wyoming lawmakers when they reconvene March 1 for the final stage of this most unconventional 2021 legislative session. The supplemental budget bill looms large, and with good reason: The state is in the midst of a historic revenue crisis and a number of difficult cuts will have to be made. But for pure law-making nuance, political complexity and long-lasting impact, perhaps no forthcoming sausage will be meatier than House Bill 61- School finance recalibration. Recalibration happens every five years — at the end and t...
By now, even casual observers recognize that Wyoming’s near single-minded reliance on mineral revenues leaves the state vulnerable to wild swings of boom-and-bust volatility and makes funding the basic functions of government a dicey proposition in bust times like these. What readers may not realize, however, is that other states with similar economies and political environments have figured out how to avoid putting all their eggs in one basket. Take West Virginia for example. Wyoming and West Virginia each have claimed coal as one of their m...
Well-considered comments and e-mails following the discussion of Wyoming’s excess tax capacity, and the one-page legislative document that measured it, differed widely and reflected all of the various political positions one might expect. But a number of astute readers raised the same valid concern: Our discussion omitted the issue of ability to pay. In other words, unless Wyoming residents can actually afford to bridge the gap between what we pay in taxes and what our neighbors pay on average, then tax capacity as measured is just a bunch o...
The legislature’s budget and fiscal staff recently prepared a very novel one-page document that merits the attention of every Wyoming lawmaker and citizen. “Wyoming Estimated Tax Capacity” asks and answers a seemingly simple question: How much additional revenue could Wyoming raise if its tax rates equalled, on average, those of adjoining states? The question may be straightforward enough, but calculating an answer required an extensive review of tax policies in neighboring states and an equally rigorous comparison with Wyoming’s. Sales a...
Wyoming’s fiscal situation has grown very stormy in 2020. The state has already administered a 10% cut across all agencies, followed by another $500 million this fall, with possibly more to come. It now looks like we’ll have to reduce the two-year budget from about $3.3 down to $2.4 billion in order to make it balance. This is too much to withstand if we hope to maintain needed state services. Observers have long noted that Wyoming suffers because it has resisted diversifying the revenue streams with which it pays for general state government a...
The Legislature’s Select Committee on School Finance Recalibration rarely makes headlines. Its meetings are lengthy, the subject matter is complex and tangible results are slow-developing. The vast majority of time during early committee meetings is spent listening to expert presentations. Yet, public-school-finance policy impacts every community in the state and we overlook its crafting at our peril. This year of vastly shrinking state revenues it holds added significance with potential changes to the funding model itself. Past state S...
The COVID-19 CARES Act is so involved, complex and voluminous that — just as the speaker of the U.S. House famously said of another bill a few years ago — Congress may have had to pass it to see what all was in it. The relief package is broadly structured because the impacts of the virus are spread throughout the entire public and private sectors. In short, there is something in the act for nearly everybody. There is disaster relief for state, local and tribal governments, grants for public education and higher education. Several sections tar...
If there was anyone left in Wyoming who hadn’t yet gotten the memo, lawmaker activity during current legislative session has made it abundantly clear: The state needs to find some funding solutions. Toward that end, lawmakers have considered bills that would change the sales tax rate, alter the flows of severance and mineral royalty revenues and reduce dependence on the state’s general fund — which was the major motivation behind the lodging tax passage. The House Appropriations Committee even brought forth House Bill 186 – K-12 and local g...
Some pieces of legislation receive far less attention than they deserve. House Bill 171 – Wyoming gaming commission, sponsored by the travel committee, looks to be one such under-the-radar measure this session. Early legislative comments focused on the idea that it regulates gambling. It’s more accurate, however, to describe the measure as legalizing instant-gratification gambling on a new level for the state. And the high number in its name reveals, the bill surfaced late in the game, allowing very little time for public scrutiny. Wyoming has...
So many bills, so little time. Most veteran lawmakers would agree that the condensed 20-day budget sessions — like the one Wyoming’s 65th Legislature enters into this week — are much more demanding and stressful than the 40-day general sessions. Despite being only half as long, the amount of work a budget session requires does not drop correspondingly by half. And with time windows closing and deadlines approaching very rapidly, the rapid-fire pace scrambles even the most thoughtful approaches at deliberate scheduling. The time crunch begin...
If you’ve been wondering why there’s been so much talk of budget negotiations in the Legislature this year — a supposedly non-budget year — you’re not alone. During my 12 years of service in the House, I sensed that the most difficult aspect of state government for the general public to get a good grasp on was the state budget. The same was true for many legislators. Typical citizens perhaps know the Legislature meets annually. They may also realize every other year is a “budget session.” The 2019 session, as in all odd-numbered years, is ref...
The pursuit of a sensible public policy for wind power in Wyoming has become an unsettled, decade-long saga. Most other states in the region have already figured out how to appropriately regulate and tax wind resources, but it seems Wyoming inherently deals with a more complex set of circumstances. We can trace this, in large part, to the perceived conflict between wind and the state’s primary breadwinner — the mineral industry. Coal, oil and natural gas together have combined as the basic economic engines and financiers of public services in...
