CHEYENNE—It took about nine minutes Tuesday morning for a property tax cut deal to fall apart, with Senate leaders accusing their House counterparts of backing out of an agreement they’d already accepted.
“We shook hands. We had a deal,” Senate President Bo Biteman, R-Ranchester, told reporters after negotiations fell apart.
Appointed House and Senate members, known as a Joint Conference Committee, met that morning to formally reconcile their differences on Senate File 69, “Homeowner property tax exemption.” The bill aims to broadly reduce property taxes for Wyoming homeowners — one of the biggest issues that lawmakers sought to tackle this session.
The House had amended the bill last week before the Senate voted against those changes, setting the stage for this week’s negotiations.
Since then, the Joint Conference Committee had met privately several times to iron out the details. Those members included Sens. Tim Salazar, R-Riverton, Troy McKeown, R-Gillette, Mike Gierau, D-Jackson and Reps. Scott Heiner, R-Green River, Tony Locke, R-Casper, and Chris Knapp, R-Gillette.
Biteman and Speaker of the House Chip Neiman, R-Hulett, were both present at Tuesday’s meeting.
The deal that senators said they had worked out included a 25% tax exemption on the first $1 million of a single-family home. It did not include backfill for local governments or a sunset date, and an owner-occupied stipulation would have only kicked in after the first year the law was in effect.
“They accepted, which is why we came here today. [It] was to finish this,” Gierau told reporters.
But when Gierau brought a motion for that compromise at Tuesday’s meeting, Heiner said the House side of the panel would oppose pursuing it at that time.
“We would like to go back to our members and present this in our caucus,” Heiner said. “So we would ask for a couple of days to reconvene.”
The vote that followed split along chamber lines — senators voted aye and representatives voted nay.
McKeown told reporters the two sticking points in their negotiations were the exemption percentage and backfill.
“I’m not going to mince words, it wasn’t just our offer,” McKeown said. “That was what they wanted. That is what they agreed to — until this morning. It’s very, very disappointing,” he said.
When the Senate sent the bill to the House in early February it included a 50% exemption and no backfill. Over the ensuing weeks, the House considered 35 amendments to the bill, before reverting to the Senate’s position. The House, however, included a $225 million backfill and had removed the sunset date.
Heiner told WyoFile in an email that the bill is “an important piece of legislation that has wide implications for the citizens of Wyoming.
“After getting the Senate’s proposed amendment this morning, we wanted to go back to our chamber to discuss it with our members and to run the numbers,” Heiner wrote.
The House’s vote against Gierau’s motion was not a refusal, Heiner added.
“We did not reject their proposed amendment but could not agree to it at that time,” Heiner wrote. “Our vote was not to reject, but to ask for more time to consider it.”
Salazar told reporters the vote speaks for itself.
“We tried to bring it across the goal line this morning for our folks back home. And you saw the roll call vote,” Salazar said.
It’s not clear when the Joint Conference Committee will meet next. But the ball is in the lower chamber’s court, McKeown said.
“Tax relief is in the House right now,” he said.
If lawmakers want the opportunity to override a gubernatorial veto, they’ll need to get the bill passed in both chambers by the end of this week. Otherwise, Gov. Mark Gordon can decide on the bill after lawmakers conclude the session.
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