CHEYENNE—When it comes to the supplemental budget, the House and the Senate stand approximately $109 million apart in spending.
The split pales in comparison to last year’s billion-dollar divide. Within it, however, lie several philosophical differences that will likely pose challenges as the two chambers begin their work toward a unified budget.
The House and the Senate are divided on three main issues — how best to dole out wildfire recovery funds, to what degree local governments should be reimbursed for revenue loss from property tax cuts and how much money to provide the governor’s office for energy project matching funds.
In even-numbered years, lawmakers craft the state’s upcoming two-year budget, also known as a biennium budget. In odd-numbered years, as they are doing right now, lawmakers work on the supplemental budget — which, as the name implies, supplements the financial plan already in effect.
Ahead of the budget bill arriving in both chambers, the Joint Appropriations Committee slashed roughly $235 million from Gov. Mark Gordon’s recommendations via cuts to wildfire recovery, energy projects, emergency funds for local governments and reimbursement rates for maternity and mental health care.
House Appropriations Chairman John Bear, R-Gillette, stood by the JAC’s work at a Wyoming Freedom Caucus press conference. Bear is the group’s former chairman.
“Prior appropriators have stated this as well — this is probably the closest a budget has ever been between the two chambers at this point. Part of that is the fact that we had very little to work with [after] we in JAC reduced the budget so significantly,” Bear said.
Both the Senate and House’s budget proposals come in below the governor’s recommendations and share some similarities. Each earmarked funds for search and rescue as well as an extraction of a historic tree in Northwest Wyoming. They also both appropriated $4 million for child development centers and added language requiring the state’s human resources division to prepare a report detailing how many state employees work remotely.
Wildfire funds
An ongoing debate this legislative session has revolved around how best to respond to last year’s historic wildfire season and the devastation it wrought. More specifically, lawmakers as well as the governor have disputed whether it’s better to assist landowners with grants or loans.
Of the 850,000 acres burned last year, 70% was state and private land. As such, the governor proposed spending $130 million in grants to help landowners restore grasses, replace fences and rebuild structures, among other things.
The JAC, however, reduced that to $100 million and made it into a loan program to be administered by both the Wildlife and Natural Resource Trust and the Office of State Lands and Investments with a 2% interest rate.
That raised “grave concerns” for the governor, who held meetings in Gillette, Sheridan and Wheatland to hear directly from folks in communities recently harmed by wildfires.
Subsequently, the House reverted $40 million of those dollars to grants and kept the remaining $60 million in a loan program. The Senate ditched the loan program, opting instead for $100 million in grants.
Backfill and energy funds
As lawmakers considered several property tax cuts this session, they have disagreed on backfill, which acts as a reimbursement for local governments that rely on property taxes.
Property taxes do not fund state services. Instead, they pay for local services like K-12 education and transportation, senior centers, hospitals, water and sewer, law enforcement, libraries and the construction and maintenance of roads and sidewalks.
Both the House and the Senate opted for backfill in the budget, but to different extents and with certain conditions.
The upper chamber’s proposal does not reimburse municipalities or counties, but includes $15 million in backfill for special districts related to health and emergency management services.
The lower chamber, meanwhile, has proposed $72 million in grants for local governments, but would only be available for the state’s eight “hardship” counties. That includes Big Horn, Washakie, Goshen, Niobrara, Weston and Crook counties.
There are a few other strings attached to the House’s position.
The $72 million, for example, would only be made available if at least one of the Legislature’s 10 related property tax bills makes it into law. Plus, a hardship county would only qualify for the funds if the community has imposed the maximum mill levy.
Among its cuts, the JAC targeted the governor’s Energy Matching Funds, striking roughly $100 million from the program, which is intended to leverage private and federal funds for energy projects, including carbon capture.
The Senate restored the $100 million, while the House kept the JAC’s position.
Other differences
The governor asked lawmakers to raise Medicaid reimbursement rates for both maternal and behavioral health — $2.4 million for the former and $1.6 million for the latter. Both requests were split between state dollars and federal matching funds.
While Wyoming is experiencing a maternal health crisis and has long wrestled with one of the nation’s highest suicide rates, the JAC rejected both rate increases.
The Senate, however, amended its budget to include both requests. Rep. Lloyd Larsen, R-Lander, brought mirror amendments in the House, but both failed.
“One hospital in my county and one close to us in Kemmerer both have shut down their maternity care,” Sen. Wendy Schuler, R-Evanston, said on the Senate floor. “We’re in a bad way.”
The Senate also approved salary increases for the Wyoming Tourism Board — something the governor had recommended. Those employees’ salaries are funded by the lodging tax and have fallen behind other state employee salaries.
The House rejected a mirror amendment after Freedom Caucus member Rep. Ken Pendergraft, R-Sheridan, equated it with the times one of his 10 grandchildren have asked their mom for a cookie.
“We’ll keep standing up and saying no, ‘we don’t want you to have another cookie,’” Pendergraft said. “We don’t believe that’s good for you.”
Larsen pushed back.
“I just really hope that that agency’s staff wasn’t listening and somehow thinking that they’re coming to Grandma begging for a cookie when really alls they are wanting is the equity on pay for the time they’re putting in,” Larsen said.
What now?
It’s now up to a select group of House and Senate members, known as a Joint Conference Committee, to negotiate their differences. But the JCC must work within the confines of the two budgets, meaning it can only adopt a Senate or House position on any given amendment.
If the two chambers cannot reconcile, the budget moves to a free committee, wherein lawmakers return to the JAC budget. From there, any amendment in any amount to any agency is allowed.
Neiman announced his JCC selections on the House floor Tuesday, which excluded House Appropriations members except for Bear.
When WyoFile asked about Neiman’s decision at the press conference, Bear said it was to give his committee members “a break.”
“I will defer to the speaker who made those final decisions, but I will say, as the chair of Appropriations, I have worked hard and run my committee about like a bunch of rented mules. So they deserve a break for their hard work,” Bear said.
Neiman followed up.
“What I wanted to do was put together a group of people that are going to be very, very focused on what the position of the House is, making sure that they go and they’ll fight for that position,” Neiman said.
The Senate had not completed its budget presentation by publishing time nor had its leadership selected JCC members. Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Tim Salazar, R-Riverton, did not respond to WyoFile’s request for comment.
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