Senate Rejects Last-Ditch House Compromise To Salvage Wyoming Budget

A last-ditch budget compromise from the Wyoming House of Representatives was rejected by Senate leadership on Monday, paving the way for what will become a mad dash to cram pieces of the rejected supplemental budget into other bills before the Legislature adjourns Thursday.

State Rep. John Bear, R-Gillette, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, confirmed to Cowboy State Daily that leadership from both chambers met Monday morning to consider a proposal brought forward by the House to return to the original supplemental budget approved by the Joint Appropriations Committee along with six amendments both sides agreed to in their respective versions of the budget.

This included a $215 million cut to Gov. Mark Gordon’s spending proposal, with about $15 million that was added back in with the amendments.

The Senate rejected the offer.

“They were more concerned about keeping spending low than they were about potential financial issues,” Bear said.

Senate President Bo Biteman, R-Ranchester, confirmed to Cowboy State Daily there’s still no budget on the table of any kind and one won’t be one created over the last four days of the 2025 legislative session.

“I am not trying to salvage the budget,” he said. “We made our decision, we’re sticking to it.”

One of the items Bear wanted put into the bill was a $70 million budget balancer to pull from the state’s Legislative Stabilization Reserve Account to cover expenditures in the budget. The Senate had proposed a $215 million budget balancer. Now, there is no budget balancer since the budget didn’t pass, and Bear said this can’t be put into a standalone bill.

“We can’t expend as much as we did in the budget because we don’t have that money to flow into our checking account to cover those expenditures,” Bear said on the House floor.

If revenues stay the same or are worse than projected, and the Legislature spends more than $12.9 million than what was in the budget proposal, Wyoming’s fiscal picture could become hairy. 

Bear said in a worst-case scenario, this could lead to the state’s general fund dipping into the negative and a special session having to be called if both chambers spend too much money in bills, an event he considers “highly unlikely,” but not impossible. This could be avoided entirely since the governor has discretionary ability to replenish this money 

Because of this situation, Bear encouraged members of the House after the compromise failed to not include aspects of the budget into bills to avoid a spending shortfall.

What It Means

Biteman said the House may try to “pork up” bills with holdover pieces of the budget,  but that the Senate will “probably not.” 

He brought up how $10 million for a state shooting complex in Cody was rejected when attempted to be added to an omnibus water bill for construction. Biteman thought this was a bridge too far when added to a water bill and also planned to vote against an attempt scheduled to add it to a bill pertaining to county and municipal roads located on state lands on Monday.

Bear said he’s certain every member of the Legislature will regret not passing the budget because of the items it included. Funding for a developmental disabilities waiver for child development centers was killed with the budget, as was the shooting complex funding.

“There’s just a lot of different things that were in there that we can’t make into bills,” Bear said. “I think every one of the 93 members probably has something for their district that they’re going to be concerned about.”

He’s also frustrated that a few members of the Senate leadership unilaterally killed the budget without a single vote taking place. 

Sen. Cheri Steinmetz, R-Lingle, agrees.

“I believe it’s a disservice to our constituents the way this was handled, because there was never a caucus vote or a floor vote process to just scrap the budget,” she said. “To me, that’s a real procedural problem.”

Rumors Amid Discontent

There were many rumors flying around the Legislature on Friday and early Monday that the budget could still be salvaged, but that now appears dead.

Scrapping the supplemental budget throws into doubt support for programs like wildfire mitigation and restoration projects,$2 million for a University of Wyoming coal pyrolysis demonstration program, $550,000 for UW’s medical education program, and $487,640 for an independent living program for current and former foster youth. 

Holly Krutka, executive director of the UW School of Energy Resources, told Cowboy State Daily the coal pyrolysis money was supposed to serve as recovery for inflationary increases in constitution costs for a project underway in Campbell County for alternative coal uses. This project was originally funded a few years ago, but doesn’t have enough to finish construction, a problem the supplemental budget money was supposed to solve. 

Krutka now has no hopes it will be attached to an existing bill because the purpose is so unique. She found the way that many needs within the budget died “very random.” 

“We’re really proud of this program and just trying to figure out how to keep it going with this new development is our next step,” she said.

Rep. Abby Angelos, R-Gillette, already saved one piece of the budget last week, a $3.8 million amendment that would be matched with federal money to provide payments to home and community-based service providers within the comprehensive waiver unit in the state’s health care financing program.

What ‘People Said They Wanted’

Last week, without any prior public warning, the leadership in the Senate announced that they would not pass a supplemental budget. They promoted the decision as an opportunity to cut spending and not waste time trying to find agreement on an already small budget.

The announcement caught many by surprise, with even members of the Legislature, including multiple senators, saying they found out the news through Cowboy State Daily’s reporting rather than from leadership.

Sen. Brian Boner, R-Douglas, told Cowboy State Daily he found the way this was handled “disappointing.” 

“There’s some important things for my district in that budget and I was disappointed I wasn’t involved in the decision making process,” he said.

Boner said he’ll try to get some of those items in other bills but is constrained by the Wyoming Constitution and Mason’s Manual of Legislative Procedures, which states that bills must be focused on a single topic.

Steinmetz said she wants to see backfill money for fire, emergency medical services and special districts that will take a hit if a 25% property tax cut passes into law.

Former legislator Andy Schwartz, now a lobbyist for thet of Jackson, said the budget discussions didn’t need to go the way they did and it doesn’t matter if certain parts of it are salvaged in different bills. Schwartz said the two chambers could have simply agreed to the parts of the budget they agreed on, but that’s exactly what was proposed on Monday and still failed.

He said the lasting lesson from the 2025 session will be “you get the government you deserve.”

“This is what the Wyoming people said they wanted,” he said.

Leo Wolfson can be reached at leo@cowboystatedaily.com.