The Wyoming House and Senate on Friday embarked on a final round of mark ups to their respective versions of the state budget for the next two years.
By evening, the Senate was poised to pass its version, while the House still had dozens of amendments to work through.
Though the two chambers started with an identical bill draft, they’re landing on markedly different funding legislation. The Freedom Caucus-stacked House is sticking to the bill draft forwarded by the Joint Appropriations Committee (JAC), which made steep cuts to what Gov. Mark Gordon had proposed based on agencies’ requests. Meanwhile, the Senate has been amending that bill draft closer to the governor’s recommendation.
In the crosshairs are funding to make state employees’ salaries more competitive, the University of Wyoming’s block grant and the future of the Wyoming Business Council.
Senate
On Friday, the Senate considered 51 third reading amendments. The fine-tuning proposals came after the body passed a sweeping amendment earlier in the week, restoring much of the funding the governor had recommended.
Among those that passed were $400,000 for surveying, documenting and three-dimensional modeling all known petroglyphs and pictographs on state, school and institutional land in Wyoming. More than $1.6 million was earmarked for senior services in the senior care. A half million dollars was directed to a University of Wyoming family residency program for a rural medicine training track program in a critical access hospital.
Earlier in the week, the body mostly restored requested funds for the University of Wyoming and the state’s primary economic development agency.
Audible cheers erupted when Sen. Wendy Schuler (R-Evanston) withdrew the 51st amendment, the final budget item.
“The Senate will stand at ease to the sound of the gavel,” wrapped up their budget work for the evening before senators turned their attention to the pile of non-budget bills awaiting their attention.
The Senate passed its version of the budget bill with 20 ayes, 10 nays and one excused.
House
The House was set to consider more than 120 third reading amendments.
By late Friday afternoon, representatives had only voted on about two dozen. Based on the stack of amendments, the chamber was likely to continue working late Friday night and even Saturday to finish its budget.
Some amendments that died were similar to those that were killed during second reading earlier this week, but one that survived on the second go-around, sponsored by Rep. Steve Harshman (R-Casper), would allocate $100 million from a state savings account to the state Department of Transportation.
That money would be given to the department to distribute as loans to fund construction projects for additional passing lanes on highways across Wyoming. The amendment doesn’t have a mirror amendment in the Senate, so its survival depends on lawmakers who will be appointed to a joint conference committee to iron out differences between the two chambers’ budget bills.
The House shot down amendments that would’ve added an attorney to the state attorney general’s office to help fight natural resources lawsuits and another that would’ve provided more funding for obstetrics care in rural hospitals, in the event that the bill containing Rural Health Transformation Program federal funding dies in the Senate. That bill was approved by the House. Representatives say federal funding will help healthcare services.
Earlier in the week, State Treasurer Curt Meier released a statement saying that an amendment to give his office $320,000 to cover additional due diligence contracts that the House denied was “at least partially the result of inaccurate testimony by some Legislators.”
Meier said, “We are not just looking at discounted cash flows reported by companies or buying mutual funds, as some Legislators stated Tuesday on the House floor.” He added his office is dealing with “private investments, hedge funds and other securities that are available only to large asset owners like us.”
“Denying this budget request is being penny wise and dollar foolish,” Meier said. “When you are ready to turn over and invest $100 million to $500 million with someone, you really need to make sure you know everything you can about them.”
Freedom Caucus lawmakers have said they want to bring state spending back to pre-pandemic levels. They’ve denied requested increases across government agencies to achieve that goal.
But other lawmakers have argued costs have risen significantly since 2020, and that denying increases amounts to making cuts.
