Decision on direct distribution waits for March session

WORLAND — The funding for the local direct distribution to cities, towns and counties will have to wait until the Wyoming Legislature resumes work in March with the State House not taking action on Senate File 64.

Earlier this month, the Senate voted to cut the annual payment for direct distribution from $105 million to $92.5 million, about a 20% cut in funding. Sen. Ed Cooper (R-Ten Sleep) said, “I didn’t care for it. I felt it was inappropriate the way it was written.”

He said most departments got cut 10% for the biennium budget but because cities, towns and counties received the first full payment in 2020 the Senate sought to cut 20%.

He said the House had a similar version with just a cut to $99 million.

Rep. Mike Greear (R-Worland) agree with Cooper that the cut in the Senate File is “too much.” He said local governments have experienced the same downturn in revenue. The other issue he has is that the funding comes from the Legsislative Stabilization Reserve Account (rainy day fund, LSRA) funding ad for the past four years has been a separate stand alone bill rather than part of the overall budget.

“It comes out of the LSRA so I don’t understand why we have to revisit it every year,” Greear said. He noted the direct distribution was provided because when the state opted to exempt food from sales tax, that cut a lot of sales tax revenue for cities, towns and counties. He said most of the sales tax in Washakie County would be from groceries/food except that it is exempt.

Greear said if Senate File 64 comes to the House floor he will work to get some if not all of the funding added back.

In other legislative news, Greear said the Road Usage Bill, House Bill 37 was not taken up in the House and could be considered in March during the in-person

session. However, he said the Speaker of the House told Greear that the bill will not get out of his drawer. “It’s my understanding that no one wants the bill.”

SHORT TIME

COMPENSATION

A bill that Greear’s Minerals Committee introduced, House Bill 09, Enrolled Act 1 had the support of Greear and Rep. John Winter (R-Thermopolis) in the House and Cooper in the Senate. There was little opposition to the bill that establishes a short-time compensation program within the Department of Workforce Services.

In a previous interview Greear said, “I think it’s a good bill and a good bill in Wyoming.”

The bill would allow companies to keep employees on during tough fiscal times but be allowed to cut hours back. The employees would be able to keep their benefits with the company. To hold the employee harmless, they would be able to pick up funding for the lost hours through the unemployment insurance trust.

“Other states have shown it a cost savings to the trust because typically, the employer, as soon as they can fire up 100% they will,” Greear said. By being able to keep the staff, it helps the employer because when they do fire up to 100% they do not need to recruit and train new employees as they will already have their experienced employees there.

The program would be at the complete discretion of the employer.

The bill passed the House and Senate and now awaits Governor Mark Gordon’s signature.

Cooper said the bill is one of the most important bills they put through to help employees.

As for the eight-day virtual session, Greear said the House worked all of the Senate Files that they could during the time, but noted that any bill not receiving a final outcome would have the ability to be considered in March. “It will be just like we paused and we’ll continue in March.”

He said having everyone on Zoom, even those who were in the Capitol was “weird,” adding that it did not have the same energy as when you walk into the Capitol and can immediately debate someone across the aisle.

He said at times the debates ran needlessly long with some freshman legislators telling stories and telling how they would vote without actually contributing to the debate.

During debate on the bill regarding state park fees, Greear said he and the Speaker of the House were on opposite sides of the bill and were unable to debate the policy component of the bill. “The quality of debate was not very good and being in person that will change.”

Both Greear and Cooper said many of the bills approved during the virtual session were important but were “housekeeping bills” to clean up language or bring the language into the modern world.

MARCH

The March session is slated to be in person but Greear said there is still the question of whether there will be enough staff, noting that the Legislative Service Office is having difficulties in getting people to come to the Capitol to work during the session as they have in the past.

During the March session, both agreed that the supplemental budget will be a huge discussion.

Cooper said the school funding recalibration, which currently has a 6% cut in revenue will be another hotly debated bill (House Bill 61).

Regarding a proposed bill to consolidate school districts to one per county and one on the Wind River Reservation, Cooper said, “I am adamantly against any bill where we would consolidate school districts and schools.” He said that type of loss in smaller communities would cripple those communities and destroys the core of the community.

“I have seven school districts within [State Senate District 20] and I will fight to keep those intact as long as I represent District 20,” Cooper said.

House Bill 77 was introduced last Thursday and referred to the House Education Committee.