Lawmakers deliver property tax reform
Rep. Dalton Banks, R-Cowley, said the Wyoming legislature’s budget session that concluded last week produced “some good compromises” on legislation that will be helpful to his constituents and the state’s residents.
“We never get everything we want — that’s to be expected — but I think it turned out fairly well,” he said in an interview Monday.
Lawmakers went down to the wire on the state budget, with final approval coming Friday afternoon just hours before the end of the session. “Tumultuous” was the word used by Albert Sommers and Ogden Driskill, leaders of the House and Senate respectively, to describe the budget year in a joint statement.
They touted the eventual agreement as “a conservative, balanced budget,” highlighting investments that include funding for nursing homes, preschool for developmentally disabled children, and home services for senior centers.
“The budget supports mental health efforts and funds energy projects. Additionally, and importantly, the final budget restored more than $300 million for the construction of K-12 schools. All of this was achieved with a general fund budget that is $200 million lower than the budget proposed by the governor or introduced by the Joint Appropriations Committee.
“We are proud of the work that was accomplished and commend our fellow citizen legislators for a job well done.”
Banks ultimately voted in favor of the budget’s passage, but it wasn’t an easy call.
“There were some things in there that I thought should have been cut and some things that were cut that shouldn’t have been,” he said.
One of his biggest disappointments was a reduction in funding for the state’s 988 suicide hotline trust fund, from the $40 million that was proposed to $10 million in the final budget. “This was one of the things we had to compromise on,” he said. “There was some difference of opinions on priorities so the number we ended up on was 10.” That appropriation “will get us through for now, but it’s a discussion we will need to have again in the future about being able to sustain it for the long term.”
Banks said he was also disappointed that a grant for mental health services in schools, a priority of his going in, was also cut during budget negotiations.”
“We tried to redo the whole system on state capital construction,” he continued. “We wanted to see projects finished instead of more and more and more projects started. We reduced that funding down just to finish current projects. In the final version, all of that money was put back into capital construction to start new projects while current ones are also continuing on.”
On the positive side, Banks said, “I ran an amendment to the budget for FFA projects to be included in the budget permanently. I feel our ag programs are really important ... I was happy that one passed.”
Of his decision to vote in favor of the budget, Banks said, “I came to the realization, you know, you can’t get everything you want. You have to go forward with the compromise, so I went forward with that.”
Property tax relief
The session produced three bills dealing with runaway property taxes: House Bill 4, House Bill 45 and Senate File 54. Sommers and Driskill touted the three pieces of legislation as “the largest property tax reform package in the history of our state.”
Banks said he voted in favor of all three.
House Bill 3 provides a property tax exemption for long-term homeowners who are 65 or older and have paid property taxes in the state for at least 25 years. “They get a 50-percent exemption of the assessed value of their homes,” said Banks.
The Republican from Cowley co-sponsored House Bill 45, which caps annual property tax increases at 4%. “We started at 5, we tried to negotiate it down to 3 and we compromised at 4,” he said. “We’ve seen as much as 30 and 40 percent increases in recent years.
“When people can’t expect what they are going to pay, or plan for what they need to pay, that’s hard. Going forward, knowing that at the most it’ll be 4 percent, that should give them some peace of mind.”
Senate File 54 , slugged homeowner tax exemption, will cut the average homeowner’s tax bill by $600 per year based on statewide averages. Only homes that are valued under $2 million will qualify for the exemption, he said.
Other highlights
While the budget and property tax reform emerged as the main themes, lawmakers took up a number of other issues during their 20 days in Cheyenne.
Banks provided a few highlights:
• House Bill 125, repeal of gun free zones, removes restrictions on gun-free zones in Wyoming. The bill passed and sent to the governor. “I was a big supporter of that,” he said. “It basically goes back and eliminates those places of vulnerability. We’re seeing crime spike, especially with the southern border wide open.
“We’re concerned about people being vulnerable in places such as schools and at the capital. The bill allows people who have a concealed carry permit, who went through the training to get it, to be able to carry in all of these places around the state.”
The legislation doesn’t apply in federal buildings, which remain gun-free.
Banks said a provision was added to restrict open carry, however. “We didn’t want people walking around the state capital with AR-15s looking down at us, trying to intimidate us while we were discussing heated topics. Same with school board meetings. That’s why we made it concealed carry, not open carry.”
• Banks said he fought for increased direct distribution to cities and counties.
“That had been set at $105 million ... for a number of years,” he said. “We gave them a little boost last year when we had a surplus. This year, I along with some other legislators ran an amendment to match that increase we gave them last year. Now that number will be $146 million which will be distributed to counties and towns.”
• Banks said he fought to make adjustments to the sex offender statute, but came up short. The state’s sheriff’s departments were seeking language that would have barred registered sex offenders from being in close proximity to childcare and daycare facilities. Right now, it’s just schools. House Bill 152 didn’t meet the threshold required for introduction, however.
• Other than property tax reform, Banks said the piece of legislation that generated the most feedback from constituents was Senate File 90. The bill prohibits doctors from performing gender transition procedures on children under the age of 18 under threat of being stripped of their licenses.
“That was a heavily debated topic, but it passed the Senate and the House by wide margins and is headed to the governor’s desk,” said Banks. “I was proud of the work we did to protect Wyoming children from making those decisions before they reach adulthood.”