State lawmakers wielding the power of Wyoming’s purse strings made sweeping cuts across state government this week, slashing funding to the University of Wyoming (UW), the state Department of Health, the Department of Family Services, proposed state employee wage increases and more.
The Joint Appropriations Committee (JAC) oversees the first markup of Gov. Mark Gordon’s proposed budget. Their version now heads to the House and Senate for further debate, amendments and negotiations.
Lawmakers also completely defunded the Wyoming Business Council, and likewise debated on and passed a draft bill on Jan. 15 that would erase any mention of its existence from Wyoming statutes and transfer some of its functions to other agencies effective July 1, 2026.
Officials from Gordon’s office, like Policy Director Randall Luthi, attended the public comment period during the committee’s discussion around the business council. He called the move to dissolve the agency in its entirety “crazy,” adding, “This looks bad. It smells bad. It isn't going to look good in the public.”
For weeks, the JAC has met at the state Capitol building in Cheyenne to hear presentations from agency leaders and the governor about the importance of funding government programs and divisions. Lawmakers asked questions of agency heads that gave indications of how the committee might vote, but no concrete legislative actions were taken during that time.
Those presentations were meant to inform JAC lawmakers in the lead up to this week, when the committee was slated to begin “marking up,” or editing, Gordon’s $11 billion biennial budget proposal.
During markup week, JAC legislators – five from the Senate, seven from the House – were predicted to give concrete indications for how the committee’s budget bill will ultimately look when it’s received for introduction in the House and Senate ahead of the Feb. 9 legislative session.
Due to the size of the House delegation to the JAC, members and endorsees of the further-right Wyoming Freedom Caucus led the way on much of the committee’s actions. The caucus’s motions were frequently supported by a majority of senators on the JAC, too.
Caucus members again wore red suits, with the goal of slowing the growth of government, according to former caucus chair and JAC Chair Rep. John Bear (R-Gillette). He said they wanted to mark the budget up to be “pro pay-check, not pro-welfare.”
With the text of the JAC’s budget bill still forthcoming – and therefore, a compilation of every budgetary reduction or approval they made – the exact numbers for how every agency fared are still being calculated. The Legislative Service Office (LSO) will draft that bill before the session starts on Feb. 9.
But in monitoring the events from this week, Wyoming Public Radio (WPR) noted the following reductions:
- Cuts to increased Medicaid reimbursement rates for mental health and OB-GYN providers
- Cuts to an increase for the health department’s community choices waiver, a long-term care Medicaid program for seniors and adults with disabilities
- Denial of increased federal funds for tribally-run healthcare facilities on the Wind River Reservation, 100% of which would’ve been federal dollars, not state
- A $61 million reduction for UW, including a $1.69 million cut in state funding for WPR itself
- The wholesale termination of the state’s economic development agency, the Wyoming Business Council
- Cuts to funding for SUN Meals, which are lunches distributed to K-12 students across Wyoming during the summertime, a function of the Department of Education
- Cuts to some technical services and system upgrades to be carried out by the Department of Administration and Information
- Cuts to some wage increases for state employees to keep their pay more in line with the current market, an ask made by the Department of Administration and Information
Though cuts were the norm, JAC appropriators raised funding for the health department’s developmental disabilities waiver program, otherwise known as DD waivers, in order to completely eliminate the waitlist for that social safety net program.
The JAC also appropriated $125,000 for Secretary of State Chuck Gray’s office to advertise an upcoming 50% property tax reduction ballot initiative slated for the 2026 general election. Gordon previously called Gray’s request for that appropriation unnecessary.
A big change happened when Rep. Ken Pendergraft (R-Sheridan) motioned for an agency-wide amendment to the Department of Health that banned any state funds to be used for abortion or “sex change operations.”
Cuts made across state government were defended by members of the Freedom Caucus by pointing to the need to protect taxpayers from programs that may not be the “proper role of government.” The caucus has said it aims to bring state spending to “pre-COVID levels,” despite a weakening of the U.S. dollar’s buying power due to inflation in the years since.
Moderate Republicans react
Rep. Lloyd Larsen (R-Lander) previously served on the JAC for eight years. He told WPR while much of the proceedings this week were routine, a few elements jumped out at him.
Chief among them was a trend of committee members not asking questions of agency heads that may have resolved differences before making sometimes steep cuts.
“I see reductions to various parts of the budget, but then when I go back and watch the conversations with the agencies, they don’t ask any questions regarding that particular issue,” said Larsen.
A good example of that trend could be found in the Department of Family Services, Larsen said. Past appropriators invested in the department to upgrade its computer systems and improve communication between that agency and other systems in state government, including the Department of Health and Department of Corrections.
When past lawmakers did so, they acknowledged there would be ongoing licensure and maintenance requirements to keep those computer systems in place, he explained.
“ So there's an exception request to increase the budget in Department of Family Services to accommodate that,” he said. “We've been anticipating that that would come for some time. It came, and [there was] no conversation about it at all from the committee members during that agency's hearing. But in the markup, they deny it. So I question the rationale behind denying it, if there was no conversation about it in the budget hearing. That gives me pause.”
However, Larsen said it was possible JAC members had asked questions of DFS leadership outside their public meetings on the agency.
Meanwhile, Larsen noted another “unusual” trend: Lawmakers on the JAC motioning to cut agencies did not initially explain their rationale for doing so unless explicitly asked, as Rep. Trey Sherwood (D-Laramie) frequently did during the week’s proceedings.
“ I think if you're going to make a cut … I think you have a responsibility to just explain the justification, and it should be more than, ‘Just because,’” he said. “ I think there's an expectation from the members of the committee that a person proposing an amendment be able to explain and justify the need for that amendment.”
Sen. Cale Case (R-Lander) said he didn’t think the state budget was being approached in a “thoughtful manner.” Case previously served on the JAC for four years.
“ There were some really brilliant people on appropriations,” said Case. “My good friend Lloyd Larsen, my friend [Rep.] Bob Nicholas (R-Cheyenne), [Rep.] Steve Harshman (R-Casper). These were brilliant people. I don't think that the quality of people on appropriations from the House [currently] represents that, and it's not a criticism of them. You couldn’t possibly do it in this short amount of time. But [they] turned it into a political football, instead of someone that really should … analytically look at Wyoming's budget and make the best proposal going forward, and that's unfortunate. It's going to hurt us. It's set us up for a gridlock in this session, a gridlock where the governor's veto is going to be very important.”
Former Rep. Clark Stith (R-Rock Springs) focused on the budget reduction to UW in particular, calling that move “a sad day” for the state. These days, Stith leads a law firm in Rock Springs.
“ The across-the-board cut to the University of Wyoming is unfortunate because investing in the university – it's not just good for the university itself, it's good for the state, it's good for the future of the state,” said Stith. “The only way that we drive economic growth over the long run is through innovation and technology. The University of Wyoming is at the heart of that.”
More markup to come
The state budgeting process is far from over. Many of the changes made to the governor’s proposal could be reversed or expanded on as both chambers debate the JAC’s budget bill in February.
But the moves made by the JAC thus far left some lawmakers wondering about the integrity of the budget in general, especially in a session when lawmakers will have just 21 legislative days to come to an agreement on the budget, K-12 school recalibration, constitutional amendments on eliminating residential property taxes and banning abortion, and a host of committee and individual bills.
It is within Gov. Mark Gordon’s power to veto swaths of the budget the Legislature eventually sends him, or to simply kill the budget bill entirely.
“ Let's just say the governor hates the bill altogether and just vetoes the bill, and [lawmakers] don't have the votes to override it, then you'd come back in a special session and work on the budget,” Larsen said.
Gordon’s vetoes can be reversed if two-thirds of both the House and Senate vote to do so.
The budget session begins on Feb. 9.
This reporting was made possible by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, supporting state government coverage in the state. Wyoming Public Media and Jackson Hole Community Radio are partnering to cover state issues both on air and online.
