Wyoming Budget Shortfall Improves to Negative $1.4 Billion

In a press conference on Tuesday, Gov Gordon said WYDOT could be eliminated and it wouldn't put a dent in the budget shortfall.

July 28, 20202 min read

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(Cowboy State Daily Staff)

An update of a report projecting revenues for the state will show a slight improvement over earlier predictions, Gov. Mark Gordon said Tuesday.

However, Gordon, speaking during a news conference, said the numbers to be presented in the latest report from the Consensus Revenue Estimating Group will still paint a gloomy picture for the operation of state agencies.

“While it’s improved and while we’re very happy about the improvement, we also face significant challenges going forward,” he said. “Virtually every part of Wyoming is still going to have to look at what they’re going to have to do to meet this budget shortfall.

In May, the CREG, a group of state financial officers, estimated the state’s revenue for the coming two years would fall up to $1.5 billion short of what is needed to pay for the state’s biennium budget approved by the Legislature in March.

Gordon said the latest report, to be released in the next few days, will show that shortfall dropping by about $100 million.

“It’s not back to what we were hoping for, but it’s an improvement,” he said.

However, Gordon noted the shortfall is still large enough to equal or exceed the budget of entire state departments.

“If we eliminated all of (the Wyoming Department of Transportation), if there was no snowplowing, no road construction, no highway patrol, we wouldn’t have dented that,” he said. “If we cut our education general fund in half, we would barely touch that deficit that we’re having to deal with.”

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