Elected officials share legislative concerns with area lawmaker

Many of Big Horn County’s elected officials attended the Jan. 20 County Commissioner meeting with Senator Ed Cooper, R-Ten Sleep. The senator presented a legislative update then asked for questions. 

Wyoming Business Council staffer Kristin Fong asked Cooper what he thinks the sentiment is from fellow legislators regarding the Wyoming Business Council. She stated, “We are hearing a lot of support for the business council from the public, in part due to programs like Assistance 2 Action. We’ve had really good success with our programs in the more rural communities.” 

Cooper replied that what he has received 100% positive feedback from the public. 

“I can’t imagine why we would decapitate, that’s the right word, an entity such as this. A lot of businesses have been helped in the state over the years. Maybe it needs some reorganization or restructuring a bit. We can do that, but you don’t do that by eliminating the whole entity. That is the wrong way to go about it. I will be fighting for the business council,” Cooper said.  

Deputy County Attorney Jen Kirk followed up Fong’s inquiry. She said that she is aware the recommendation from the Joint Appropriations Committee to dismantle the WBC is only a suggestion, but it carries a lot of weight when it comes time for the full legislature’s vote.   

Cooper’s response was, “The state’s Freedom Caucus (FC) in D.C. has pledged $30,000 to each house race in Wyoming. The [FC] members are judged on how they vote on each of their agendas and the email that they get every day. The more you are in line with the voting the better your campaign donation is. I’ll just leave it there. No matter what they think, that is what they are told to do.”

Commissioner Bruce Jolley asked if the pledges were for the senate too. Cooper replied there is not an official FC in the senate. Jolley told Cooper that the commission had asked Senator Dan Laursen, R-Powell if he was a FC member. Jolley noted that Laursen’s response was that he wasn’t invited to be a member. “Although he votes pretty close with them,” added Jolley. 

Cooper stated “I am definitely not a part of the Freedom Caucus. In fact, I am a target (of the FC), I tell people all the time I voted for Nixon. I’ve voted Republican every election since then. But I’m considered a liberal because I don’t vote with them. I think each and every one of us elected is to represent us (constituents). My opinion should be the least important one in the room.” 

Cooper reported he is hearing the vast amount of the people in this district are not in favor of the FC. The County’s Emergency Management Coordinator LaRae Dobbs told Cooper he is 100% correct. 

DIRECT DISTRIBUTION 

Jolley asked if there was a group of legislators fighting against giving any direct distribution. The senator replied not publicly, but he knows there are some that will vote against it. “We have one senator in this area that said he would vote to adjourn if he thought there was $10 of appropriations attached to it,” Cooper reported. 

Cooper added he would like the direct distribution from the state to the counties and municipalities to be codified. This way they know what they will receive each year. He would like to see the distribution at $175 million instead of the current $105 million. He noted there has been inflation of 1.26% since 2019 that has not been factored in when it comes to the distribution level, which has stayed stagnant for a few years. 

 PROPERTY TAX/SALES TAX 

When asked about property tax cuts the Senator responded, “We’ve seen what it has done to our counties up here. It hasn’t hurt Sheridan, Natrona, Park Counties or Cheyenne like it has us. Hot Springs, Washakie and Big Horn…we got hammered. Another 25% cut to us will be devastating.” 

He then discussed an additional 2% sales tax. “We had better do some work on the road to Billings because it is going to get busy,” Cooper said.  

He can’t imagine that this area will get a fair shake when it comes to the distribution of the additional tax. He believes that there is no one in Casper, Cheyenne, Sheridan, etc. that cares about the Otto cemetery as much as the people in Otto. “When we take the sales tax away, it takes away our local control.  Where we spend our money. It puts local control in the hands of the state. To me that is not smaller government. That control needs to stay right here. We need to control where we spend our mill levies. Not somebody else,” Cooper said. He added he does not believe an additional 2% sales tax should be passed. 

“Should we stay where we are at on property taxes, I’m ok with it. We’re going to learn to adjust to it. But another 25% is going to hurt us a lot. Then we will probably be looking at some sort of backfill from the state,” Cooper said.  

Commission Chair Deb Craft remarked, “They aren’t really talking about backfill, are they?” 

Cooper indicated there will be discussion again. He supported it last time and will support it again, especially for the special districts. (Big Horn County has 54 such districts) 

Cooper sits on the Wyoming Wildlife Resource Trust-Large project funding committee. The committee brought five bills forward to fund large projects, three of which are in his district. One is a fish ladder around an irrigation structure on the upper Greybull River. One is a fish screen on the Cody Canal. 

“We lose 47,000 fish a year to the Cody Canal,” Cooper said. 

The third bill is a large cheat grass project on the front range of Carter Mountain. Park County Weed and Pest is participating in the project. 

Cooper continued that the Weed and Pest in Big Horn, Washakie and Hot Springs Counties are struggling, “just to keep the pickups running and the sprayers working. We don’t have money for chemical and big projects like that. What happens if we take another 25% of their money away (through property tax cuts)?  It is going to devastate these special districts.” 

Craft noted that some legislators are aware that cutting property taxes, not backfilling and saying the sales tax increase will “help” it is still not going to be enough to make up for the loss. 

County Treasurer Nicole Vigil echoed Craft’s thoughts. Even if her office doles out the sales tax like property taxes, it still isn’t going to be enough. 

“It doesn’t work like property tax,” Vigil said.  She continued that some of the special districts could go down on their mill levy but our hospitals are struggling anyway.  To take more money from them would make the struggle greater. She continued that even though some legislators told her they were hearing the same from the voters, they weren’t changing their vote. 

“I don’t think that people don’t want their hospitals, their health district, senior citizens, emergency management,” Vigil said.  

Craft expressed that when people hear the words “special district” they don’t understand that it means hospitals, senior centers and cemeteries. “It affects a lot of people,” she said.  

When Cooper asked where the funding for some of the special districts would come from if not for property taxes, he was told there would be no funding. Cooper told the group he had received a letter from a woman regarding the Otto cemetery, who was distressed about what was happening. Craft went on to say when the first property tax cut happened, the county froze salaries, eliminated replacement of positions, etc. A second cut will devastate the county more. 

RAISES 

The JAC is pushing to eliminate raises for state employees with the exception of snowplow drivers and the Wyoming Highway Patrol.  He added that the state is way behind on wages for the job market. Several people in the room pointed out that the county was way behind the state on wages. Dobbs added if government starts at the lowest level, then there needs to be a way to pay the lowest level. She encouraged Cooper to band with the other 12 other hardship counties to vote together. Craft added that, “We have legislators that are supposed to be representing our county and they are not.” 

EDUCATION CUTS 

Kirk spoke of a recommendation by the JAC to strip $88 million from the Evidence Based School Funding Model. “It would cost 700 full time education jobs across the state. Mostly impacting hardship counties. “We can’t afford to lose any more staff,” Kirk said. 

 She spoke of students on IEPs (Individualized Education Program).  She believes that the funding that will be cut the fastest are the ones that fund the special education departments. The cutting of evidence-based funding would destroy the schools in Basin and throughout the state. Parents shouldn’t have to move just to find a school that will give access to an appropriate education. 

“Additionally, John Bear (R-Gillette) has been touting that he has stripped $12 million of the funding for the SUN program. (A USDA program that provides summer grocery benefits and free meal to eligible children when school is out). He didn’t strip any funding. It is Federal pass-through money. It wasn’t costing the state anything.  If the members of the FC are going to be so pro-life that they are going to suggest we amend our constitution to legislate health care, you better be pro-life to the point that you are telling school aged children that they are worthy enough of a human being to eat food in the summer. We have a lot of kids in this county whose parents can’t afford to feed them. So, stripping that money and saying I’ve saved the state $12 million didn’t’ really save the state a single penny. It tells eight-year-olds they are not worthy enough for food in the summer,” Kirk said.  

Cooper said that it seems for some legislators, their pro-life position ends at birth. Kirk agreed and stated, “If you are going to be pro-life, you should be pro-life all the way through.” The Senator explained he believes there is a strong push from the FC to dismantle the public school system. He strongly disagrees with this. “We don’t have the options of private schools and religious-based schools in our communities like they have in a lot of other communities. Not only that, if we lose 10-15 kids to a private school out of this community that devastates our schools. That is a lot of revenue.” He gave the example of Ten Sleep or Burlington. The loss would be 10% of the student base. “We have to support our public schools. Part of their agenda is to eliminate public schools. You see that with the push to cut UW.” 

The senator said he is 100% pro-life but he is pushing back on the abortion bills because he feels they are unconstitutional. The court agreed. 

“Bad bills are worse than no legislation. Let’s get good bills passed and bring them forward in the right fashion,“ Cooper said. Cooper said he  struggles because he is not sure that a 72-year-old man is in a position to tell a maternal-aged woman what she can or can’t do with her body. “Even though I strongly believe she should make the right choice. How do we make abortions unconscionable rather than illegal? I don’t know what the answer is.” 

WHAT CAN VOTERS DO 

Cooper suggested letters to the editor to the local newspapers as well as a few statewide ones. He added that there was only a 27% vote turn out in the last election. “The FC says that they have a mandate from the state. Well, at 54% of the 27%, That isn’t exactly a mandate. That is somewhere in the 14% of voters. We need to get a proper turnout,” Cooper said.

 As far as voter fraud, he pointed out four cases of voter fraud in the last 45 years. Last year in the legislation there were 42 election integrity bills. Legislators spent hundreds of hours on them. This year, he believes there will be over 60 bills to “fix a problem we don’t have.”   

OTHER BUSINESS 

• Engineering/Road/Bridge gave a department report. 

• Paul Thur/Stephanie May presented department reports from Airports & Land Planning

•Melissa Cook from UW Extension gave an update

•An executive session to discuss personnel with County Attorney Marica Bean & County Coroner Mike Jameson was held.