Mayors from communities surrounding Yellowstone National Park are asking the state of Wyoming to help pay for snow removal to help Yellowstone open its roads on time.
Yellowstone officials say the snow removal has been delayed due to the federal sequestration. But Governor Matt Mead says he has reservations about using state dollars to pay for federal obligations.
“The choice left to the state is do you leave to those communities losing that tourism dollars or is there some other way to do it? I talked to the Governor of Montana yesterday and he shares the same concerns. Once you start going down this road where does it end.”
Mead adds that there are other cuts the state will also have to deal with and Wyoming may need to look at those programs too.
“I mean how much should the state step into alleviate the mistakes of Congress and the administration? And it’s not just tourism, it’s military, its education, it’s highways, it’s everything.”
Mead says the state still has no idea what the total impact of sequestration will be. He says he received notification from the federal Department of Education that the state will lose over a million dollars in federal education funds. He expects to get more such notifications in coming days.