Legislative Digest: Wyoming lawmakers add more tax cutting bills to their quiver

Bill to cut property taxes in half sails through House committee

CHEYENNE—A bill creating a two-year, 50% reduction in property taxes for Wyoming homeowners flew through the House Appropriations Committee Thursday morning.

Senate File 69, “Homeowner property tax exemption,” passed unamended in a 6-1 vote, just two days after passing the full Senate. Lawmakers have said that by passing SF 69, they’re listening to what their constituents want. 

The reduction in tax revenue collected by the state, which is in turn sent back to counties, school districts and special districts, is anticipated to be $225 million per year, according to Committee Chairman Rep. John Bear, R-Gillette. The bill in its current form does not include any backfill, or use of state savings, to pay counties back for revenue lost as a result of the tax cut.

“This is a good bill, and I want to emphasize that the sky is not falling,” bill co-sponsor Sen. Troy McKeown, R-Gillette, told the House committee Thursday. “They are not going to shut down police departments or fire departments with this.”

The anticipated amount of annual revenue lost to Laramie County, if the bill is passed in its current version — not including cuts to education, special districts and municipalities — is estimated at more than $7.3 million, according to Wyoming County Commissioners Association Executive Director Jerimiah Rieman. The total reduction in revenue for all taxing beneficiaries in Laramie County is estimated at $43 million a year.

Rieman told the committee Thursday that his organization understands families across Wyoming are having difficult conversations about rising property taxes.

“I also would share and suggest to you that those residents aren’t calling for a reduction in services, whether that be for emergency services, their roads and the other important things that [county commissioners] provide,” Rieman said.

The anticipated annual reduction in county commission budgets across Wyoming, Rieman said, include $2.5 million to Albany County, $2.1 million to Campbell County, $650,000 to Goshen County, $4.7 million to Natrona County and $3.4 million to Sheridan County.

Those estimates do not include revenue cuts to education funding, special districts and municipalities, he said.

“Those are going to result in reduction in services, unless there is some sort of mechanism to offset those [costs],” Rieman said.

Ben Moritz, executive director of the Wyoming Community College Commission, said that the anticipated annual revenue lost to community colleges across the state will be $11 million. Smaller institutions like Sheridan College and Eastern Wyoming Community College would have a higher proportional cut than others, Moritz said. Colleges have a statutory cap on what they can hold in reserve, so most do not have the savings to draw upon if SF 69 is passed without backfill.

Wyoming’s community colleges are the workforce training centers for the state, Moritz continued, and career and technical education courses often have the highest costs. With revenue losses projected under SF 69, coursework will be difficult to maintain, as will colleges’ “ability to employ people,” Moritz said.

Josh Van Vlack, division chief for the Laramie County Fire Authority, told the committee that special fire districts operate “on a shoestring budget as it is” and that any reduction in property tax revenue will directly result in a reduction in services.

“Every dollar does matter in our response, and our ability to assist those in our jurisdictions,” Van Vlack said.

Most districts have some funding in reserve, but it’s restricted, he said. Laramie County Fire Authority’s reserve funds are earmarked for replacement of an apparatus, for example.

“A new fire truck right now is running $1.1-1.2 million. That would wipe out our reserves,” Van Vlack said.

There are around 230,000 single-family residential homes in Wyoming, according to Brenda Henson, director of the Wyoming Department of Revenue. Senate File 69 would apply an exemption to single-family structures, as well as the associated land, up to $1 million in fair market value.

People who are eligible to receive the long-term homeowner credit created in 2024 will not be able to also claim exemption under SF 69, Henson said. In 2024, lawmakers also implemented a 4% cap on residential property tax collection, which extends into 2025.

“This is the first time ever that we have had multiple exemptions that are applicable to the exact same property,” Henson said.

Bear said that he may offer an amendment on the House floor to provide backfill to “hardship” communities, which include Bighorn, Campbell, Carbon, Fremont, Hot Springs, Johnson, Sweetwater and Uinta counties. Those counties collect less in property taxes today than they did in 2015.

“I am bringing an amendment — several different options for backfill — for those eight most hardship counties, and some of the special districts,” Bear said.

If the state must tap into its own reserves to backfill cuts to those counties, he’d like to know which counties have reserves, and which are assessing all allowable mill levies available to them.

Rieman said that 21 of 23 counties assess the maximum allowable mill levies. The two that do not are Campbell and Teton counties. Five counties, according to Henson, have offered their own property tax refund program in the two years since the Legislature gave counties that option. Those are Albany, Converse, Sublette, Lincoln and Teton counties.

“The county commissioners, out of their money, put in the budget, set aside an amount that can be available to refund to taxpayers that apply,” Henson said.

Only Rep. Trey Sherwood, D-Laramie, voted against SF 69 in committee, saying that she believes each county should be allowed to craft its own property tax refund program. Calling SF 69 an “affront to local control,” Sherwood said a top-down state decision would be “heavy-handed.”

“I believe that our counties are the best ones to determine what our refund program should look like,” Sherwood said. “They know what their reserves look like. They know what their budget is, and they know what kind of relief they can provide.” 

The bill now awaits debate in the full House.

Another ‘arrow in the quiver’: House committee passes 50% tax break on homes up to $200,000 

CHEYENNE—As representatives deliberated a bill that proposes one of the largest property tax cuts in Wyoming history on Thursday, another bill offering similar, yet smaller relief also advanced out of committee.

Rep. Scott Heiner, R-Green River, introduced a bill similar to Senate File 69 with his own House Bill 130, “Homeowner tax exemption-amendments,” in the House Revenue Committee.

Heiner told committee members he hoped to approach this property tax relief with a “win-win” mindset. House Bill 130 creates a 50% tax exemption for all homeowners up to $200,000 of the residential structure’s fair market value. Lowering the ceiling to $200,000 would lower the overall cost to both the state and local communities, Heiner said. The bill’s fiscal impact is a revenue loss of approximately $83 million per year, according to the Legislative Service Office.

Qualified homeowners must live in the home for eight months of the year, and the bill excludes residential land from the tax exemption. The bill is effective immediately and has a two-year sunset date, ending in the 2027 tax season.

“We’re putting a bunch of arrows in the quiver, and as we start going to the archery range, we’re going to see which arrow is closest to the mark,” Heiner said. “I know it’s difficult with all these different ideas. Some of them are similar, some of them are kind of radical, but that’s part of the act of legislation is finding the best fit.”

The bill also includes a $176 million backfill out of the state’s general fund. Heiner originally included funding part of this backfill from unencumbered energy matching and large energy matching funds. Wyoming Energy Authority Executive Director Rob Creager told lawmakers there’s currently $46 million left in energy matching funds and $100 million left in large energy matching funds.

These funds are pulled out of the state’s general fund. Heiner proposed using these monies as state backfill, and funding the remaining $30 million directly out of the state’s general fund. However, Petroleum Association of Wyoming President Pete Obermueller said this section of the bill is a “double whammy” on Wyoming’s fossil fuel industries.

“As this bill is written, it’s nothing but lose for oil and gas,” Obermueller said.

The severance tax paid by oil and natural gas companies is a major source of funding for the state’s general fund. Not only does HB 130 shift the burden to oil and gas, Obermueller said, but it also claws back an investment in industrial projects. So far, $98 million in energy matching funds have been used to fund projects, 75% of which are fossil fuel projects.

“This bill claws back an investment in projects that my members leverage to help us advance what we do, to provide more revenue to the state, provide more jobs and to ride to your rescue,” Obermueller said.

Committee members later removed this provision of the bill through an amendment, so the energy matching funds would not be touched to backfill lost property tax revenue to local communities and school districts.

Wyoming Farm Bureau Federation policy advocacy director Kelly Carpenter said her organization supported this bill, “as it is more targeted support for those truly needing relief.” She said more and more wealthy absentee landowners are acquiring large lots of land, and it’s been noted the agricultural industry pays the lowest amount toward the state’s general fund.

“It’s very reasonable to assume that agricultural land may very well be the next place to look to raise taxes sometime in the future, leaving a larger burden for those legacy ag operations that remain,” Carpenter said.

Converse County Assessor Dixie Huxtable said the bill poses a huge administrative burden on county assessors to implement it this year. She told lawmakers an estimated 275,000 applications are expected to be submitted for this tax exemption, and county assessors would only have a couple of months to design and process those applications.

“We would be happy to work on that for 2026, but for 2025, we just don’t think, as the bill is written, the application process that could be done,” Huxtable said.

Rep. Liz Storer, D-Jackson, proposed an amendment to delay the application period until next year, but it failed to pass the committee.

The bill passed 7-1, with one member excused. It will now be sent to the House floor for three more rounds of voting, with a chance for members to bring more amendments for debate.

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