Rep. Greear reflects on budget work

WORLAND — This year’s Wyoming Legislative Budget Session will be a little different than in past years in the way the budget will be handled.

Joint Appropriations Committee member Rep. Mike Greear (R-Worland) said the committee, and the Management Council, of which he is also a member, opted to separate some expenditures from the general appropriations for operations.

Greear, who is going through his first full session on the JAC, said, “One of the reasons I wanted to get on Appropriations is so I could more fully understand how government works and to understand that you have to understand how the money flows; the appropriation process.”

He said, “I can tell you I’ve learned a tremendous amount. One thing I want to stress is that we have some very good people running some of our agencies; not all.”

Greear said, “The Joint Appropriations Committee received testimony from all state agencies as well as public testimony over 16 days.  Upon conclusion of testimony and in the subsequent four days, we worked all of the issues recommended and elected to sponsor five bills related to the budget — general appropriations for operations; state capital construction, local government distributions, appropriations from abandoned mine land funds and school capital construction financing.”

He said separating out the one-time funding issues will allow more opportunity for discussion and potential changes to those issues.

He said the operations budget bill should go through with fewer amendments than in past years.

Greear said, “What we did with all of government, every agency including the University of Wyoming, we implemented Sen. (Mike) Enzi’s penny plan. For Fiscal Year 17 we are going to reduce all general fund dollars by one penny, and in 2018, we’ll reduce it another penny, so that’s a 1.5 percent cut across the board so that people can plan.”

Other cuts include:

—10 percent reduction to Generally Funded in-state, out-of-state travel and 2.5 percent reduction to permanently assigned vehicles;

—5 percent reduction to professional services.

—$4 million GF reduction to risk management requests.

—$4 million GF reduction to Wyolink requests.

—$35 million reduction to surface transportation.

—$6.5 million reduction to Business Ready Community grants.

—$33 million reduction to local government distributions.

—Reduction of positions across state agencies totaling nearly $7 million.

Greear said the cuts the JAC made to the operations bill got them to within $36 million. The JAC is recommending using the state’s rainy day fund to cover the $36 million.

He said they are also recommending using a portion of the state’s rainy day fund to provide $90 for local governments.

“This hasn’t been decided yet,” Greear said in an interview last week prior to taking time off. He said the committee will reconvene this weekend to finalize the budget bills before the session begins Monday.

“My goal is to take another $40 million a year to transfer over to school construction. This will be a reduction in school construction but will be able to allow us to continue down the path we’ve been on just at a slower pace.”

He said the “burn rate” in the rainy day account, with the projected use of funds for the next biennium. “As the economy goes down and we have to draw out of the rainy day account, our goal is to stretch that out over 10 years. Our goal is to plan for a 10-year downturn. If it doesn’t happen, wonderful,” Greear said.

Education

Greear said in regard to education funding, “When we shifted over to the school side, we didn’t need to balance the school side funding in order to balance the budget because those funding sources are different. It is funded through the school foundation account, which is primarily funded from property tax and mineral severance/royalty tax.”

He said the state projections show that in six years there will be a shortfall of $400 million in school funding if the state does not find another source of funding. He said the only other source is through an increase in property tax.

He said the schools in the state have the same funding model as before, adding that the schools are also getting $72 million for an external cost adjustment for the biennium ($36 million per year).

The JAC also applied the same budget reduction percentage as the rest of the state, with an average of 1.5 percent for the biennium ($15 million in 2017 and $30 million in 2018).

“Is it enough to rectify the problem ($400 million shortfall)? No. Does it help? Yes it does, it helps spread that out. It’s $45 million in savings. People get used to the savings. They’ll create efficiencies. It sets the stage for harder times to come forward,” Greear said.

There are two educators on the JAC, Greear said, noting that the educator in the House voted for the cuts, “knowing that everyone has to feel this a little bit. Everyone has to tighten their belts. The other thing I point out is that the cut is $45 million out of a $3 billion budget. And, we did not touch or make a cut to major maintenance. That’s $118 million (biennium).”

Greear said, “What I think is going to affect the smaller districts more than anything is loss of students. The funding model is based on butts in the seats. The funding model makes adjustments for smaller districts, but I think the biggest cut we’ll see will come from loss of students in certain districts.”

One budgetary item that has created controversy around the state is $8 million match for the University of Wyoming athletics for nutrition programs.

Greear said, “We had changes in the NCAA regulations so that all schools now have what’s called the full-cost of attendance.” He said last year in the supplemental budget, the Legislature approved $5 million matching funds (they can’t spend without raising the same amount). It wasn’t rolled into the UW block grant as an ongoing cost. The university came back with a request for $10 million for the biennium (equal to the $5 million approved last year).

The JAC cut the request 20 percent to $8 million. “The bottom line on that is it goes to nutrition programs, goes to concussion protocols, for some travel and recruiting expense. When you compare Wyoming to the rest of the Mountain West we spend far less than anybody else. Now the debate is do we stay Division I or do we go to Division II and that’s not a debate I’m going to engage in.”

He said San Diego State paid for the additional cost in student fees but Wyoming’s Constitution provides that we provide as nearly free as possible education at the University of Wyoming.”

“The question on priorities is going to be for the Legislature to decide, quite frankly,” Greear said.

Capital construction 

In terms of capital construction, the JAC restructured the governor’s recommendations to reduce the use of reserves, and in some cases, spread the funding out over multiple years. The JAC recommended a multi-year plan to fund and address major state facilities including:

—Two community college facilities.

—State health facilities in Lander and Evanston.

—A state office building in Casper.

—Science Initiative at the University of Wyoming.

—Payments for the renovation of the State Capitol and adjacent state office building.

The committee elected to direct the recently-approved AML funds for purposes of highways, with particular priority given to those highways impacted by mining, Greear said.