One More For The Road

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Cowboy State Daily is Wyoming’s largest newspaper with Wyoming’s most experienced journalists. 

<title>One More For The Road: Friday, September 29, 2023 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

One More For The Road: Friday, September 29, 2023

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Kerry Drake

Business & Tourism

Business

LARAMIE — The closure of any rural Wyoming hospital is “an economic earthquake” in a rural state that already has huge holes in its access to health care.

That’s the message Natrona Collective Health Trust (NCHT) CEO Beth Worthen had Friday during a statewide Healthcare Policy Summit at the Hilton Garden Inn.

If that’s true, Wyoming could have up to six tremors — three within the next two to three years — if hospitals now at risk of closure actually shut their doors.

“It doesn't just mean patients drive farther. It means the employer anchoring that town's economy disappears,” said Worthen. "The payroll that sustained the main street, the school funding, the housing market — gone.”

Worthen said she’s worried that the future of these institutions may be impacted by an initiative Wyoming voters will see on their ballots in November’s general election, when they will be asked to exempt 50% of a primary residence’s assessed value from property taxes.

Worthen noted that many of Wyoming’s rural hospitals and the 18 hospital districts statewide depend on local property tax revenue to operate.

They are already dealing with the loss of 25% of property tax revenue that the Legislature approved in 2025, she said.

"That (property tax) revenue is part of what keeps emergency departments open, labor and delivery wards staffed, and the lights on in communities where no private operator would stay,” said Worthen. 

NCHT, Wyoming’s largest private foundation, is not taking a position on the ballot initiative.

But Worthen said voters need to understand that a significant reduction in property tax revenues in a community where a hospital is already operating on thin margins “isn’t a separate question from rural hospital sustainability. It's the same question.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Thin Margins"}]

To understand how thin hospital margins really are, Jeff Sollis, CEO of St. John’s Health in Jackson, shared how much his hospital receives in payments.

Sollis said 60% of the payer mix is from Medicare and 6% from Medicaid. A total of 29% is from health insurance payments, and 5% is self-paid by patients.

"We get paid around $90 million from Medicare and our costs are $120 million,” he said. “Medicaid reimburses us $2.8 million for $10 million of work. We lose about $43.7 million a year from providing services.”

Sollis said it’s only when private insurance pays that St. John’s is able to make up some of the difference, which annually leaves the hospital 5% in the hole.

“We have to figure out how we get to a 5% gain so we can reinvest in our people, our facilities, and technology,” he said. “So, it’s a very challenging set of circumstances.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Maternity Desert"}]

About 22% — more than one-fifth — of Wyoming is considered a “maternity desert” where communities don’t have birthing facilities or an obstetrical physician, the 

Since 2022, hospitals in Evanston, Rawlins, Kemmerer and Wheatland have closed their labor and delivery wards, Worthen said.

Wyoming now has 16 birthing hospitals across 97,000 square miles, she said, adding that hospitals find it exceptionally difficult to recruit and retain OB-GYNs.

Casper, a regional hub for health care services, had six OB-GYNs 18 months ago. Now there are two.

Marguerite Herman of Healthy Wyoming, which has long advocated for Medicaid expansion that the Legislature has repeatedly elected not to do, attended the summit and addressed the maternity desert issue.

“It’s one of those things where you have high fixed costs and low volume,” she said. “It’s just not going to pencil out for a hospital in Rawlins to have a full maternity ward.

“But at the same time, is this something that the state owes its residents, to not have to travel more than 100 miles to deliver a baby in the freezing winter?

Herman said the state may need to find supplemental money, whether it’s from the state or federal governments, to provide critical birthing centers in rural areas.

Worthen openly wonders if Wyoming officials have the political will to do that.

“Other states, like Alaska, are doing things better than we are, and they actually have more challenging geography than we have,” Worthen said. “We need the will to put the pieces together to keep our children here.”

Worthen, a sixth-generation Wyomingite, said her son Connor is a game warden in Saratoga, and his wife Kylie just graduated from the University Law School.

She said they want to have children, which fills Worthen “with a combination of joy and dread.”

The nearest obstetrician to Saratoga is in Laramie.

Worthen said that in the summer, it’s a lovely 45-minute drive over the Snowy Range, but in winter the trip must be made on Interstate 80, and the drive time at least doubles.

“A woman in her ninth month is not calculating that drive in ideal conditions,” Worthen said. “Two of my three children have left Wyoming for opportunities they couldn’t find here. I want to see my grandchildren born here."

Evanston Regional Hospital 6 12 26

<title>Six Wyoming Hospitals Are At Risk Of Closure, Wyoming Health Official Warns | Cowboy State Daily</title>

At a healthcare summit in Laramie on Friday, one health official said six Wyoming hospitals are at risk of closure. Natrona Collective Health Trust CEO Beth Worthen said closing rural Wyoming hospitals would be “an economic earthquake."

Six Wyoming Hospitals Are At Risk Of Closure, Wyoming Health Official Warns

Heinz mark

Mark Heinz

Wyoming Life

Around Wyoming

An Albany County couple who lost most of their possessions in a fire that left their house unlivable say their insurance company’s mishandling of the situation has left them essentially homeless for nearly 18 months.  

At about 8:30 p.m. on Feb. 27, 2025, Sandy Crawford was relaxing and watching television in one of the rooms of the spacious home she and her husband Jack own in a rural neighborhood near Laramie, when Jack entered the room frantically.

“He came running in and said, ‘The house is filling up with smoke, call 911,'” Sandy told Cowboy State Daily.

Apparently, a fire had started somewhere in the massive stone chimney in their home’s living room.

Firefighters arrived quickly and battled the blaze for hours. 

At about 2:30 a.m. on Feb 28, a huge stone chimney chase in the living room collapsed, 

crushing Laramie firefighter Dylan Schilt

, who was left temporarily paralyzed. One of his colleagues also suffered a knee injury.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Living In A Hotel"}]

The Crawfords made it out unharmed, but say they haven’t been back home since. 

As they see it, the Laramie Fire Department and other agencies that responded could have had the fire out much sooner, with far less damage to their home.

A request for comment from the Laramie Fire Department wasn’t answered by publication time.

The Crawfords say they lived in a fifth-wheel camper trailer for a time.

Then Jack had to get double hip replacement surgery and was unable to climb the stairs to get into the camper. So, they started living in a hotel room in Laramie, dependent upon a living expenses payout from their State Farm Insurance.

The couple claims that State Farm has dragged its feet and made an offer that doesn’t nearly match the value of the damage to their home and lost possessions.

Meanwhile, their living expense account is running dry and Jack said a contractor recently told him that “the house is at least four to five months away from being livable again.”

State Farm responded to a request for comment with an email to Cowboy State Daily from the company’s corporate communications office.

“To respect our customer’s privacy, we can’t discuss specific claim details,” the company statement says. "Every claim is reviewed with care, based on the facts of the loss and the coverage in the policy. 

"We’re continuing to work with our customer and their representative to pay all benefits available under the policy. Customers with questions, concerns, or additional information are always encouraged to reach out."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"‘Let Burn’ Order"}]

The Crawfords said that on the night of the fire, they were convinced that the blaze was inside the chimney, but firefighters took hoses into the house and sprayed water in several interior rooms, causing wall and floor damage.

After the chimney chase collapsed and Schilt was injured, firefighters cleared the house.

Sandy said several firefighters gathered on the back porch and when she approached to ask whether they could spray water down the chimney, one of the firefighters yelled that “we’re going to let your house burn.”

A sheriff’s deputy at the scene ordered them to leave, she and Jack both said.

Apparently, because of difficulties fighting the blaze and the injury suffered by a firefighter, a “let burn” order had been issued and the deputies were ordered to clear out non-essential personnel, in case the entire structure became engulfed, Jack said.

However, a ladder truck arrived about an hour later, he added.

“Luckily, the ladder truck poured enough water on the roof (that) the house didn’t become fully engulfed” and the fire was finally put out, Jack said.

The Crawfords claim they also had trouble with ServiceMaster restoration company after the fire.

They say they admonished the Cheyenne ServiceMaster franchise owner and his employees to let them monitor what was being taken out of the house. 

The also wanted to help assess what could or could not be salvaged because of smoke and water damage.

The Crawfords claim those requests were ignored, and ServiceMaster crews packed and removed things without their supervision or approval.

“I lost control of my house and all my possessions,” Jack said.

When a delivery of clothing was returned to their home, it included the wrong clothing, Sandy said.

“There was clothing for minors, kids’ clothes and what looked like go-go girl clothes,” she said. “I’m not a minor, I don’t have kids and I’m not a go-go dancer."

The couple claims that other items, including firearms, have gone missing and can’t seem to be located.

“A lot of stuff was broken or missing. They threw away things that they weren’t authorized to,” Sandy said.

The ServiceMaster franchise owner told Cowboy State Daily that he couldn’t comment because of possible litigation over the matter.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Lowballed Paintings"}]

Jack said initial insurance payout estimates included roughly $800,000 for damage to the house, $500,000 for their possessions, plus roughly $200,000 in temporary housing expenses.

He said State Farm paid roughly $500,000 for the house, which still needs at least an additional $100,000 in repairs.

He added that the couple has received about $200,000 for possessions and roughly half of the initially agreed-upon living expenses.

Jack also is pushing back on the value of three 5-by-8-foot original oil paintings by famed artists Ralph Oberg and Taylor Blaylock.

The paintings came from the Riverbend mansion in Saratoga, and a professional art appraiser placed their value at about $233,000 each, Jack said.

State Farm has tried to place their value at about 10% of that, he added.

“State Farm has those appraisals (on the paintings), and they don’t want to pay on them. They’ve had those appraisals since Christmas,” Jack said.

Tyler Spalding is a desk public adjuster for the Panama City Beach, Florida-based Noble Public Adjusting Group.

The company specializes in advocacy for people with allegedly mishandled insurance claims, Spalding told Cowboy State Daily.

"We’re basically their voice when they have none,” he said.

Spalding recently reached out to alert Cowboy State Daily about the Crawfords’ situation.

Insurance companies and vendors sometimes try to take advantage of elderly people, such as the Crawfords, he said.

“It’s a cash grab for these vendors. They go out and charge a lot of money to the insurance companies,” Spalding said.

He said he’s had numerous elderly clients who have been underpaid by insurance companies, as he thinks the Crawfords have been.

“Essentially, they’re not wanting to properly pay them for what their loss is worth,” Spalding said. “They’ve paid some, but it isn’t enough for the clients to be brought back to pre-loss conditions. It’s the same story across the country.

“This guy (Jack Crawford) is upset. He feels that the whole thing was handled wrong from start to finish,” Spalding added. “I want people to be aware of this, because I’m so sick of this going on."

Crawfords inset 6 12 26

<title>Couple Says Insurance Company’s Mishandling Of Fire Claim Has Made Them Homeless | Cowboy State Daily</title>

An Albany County couple who lost most of their possessions in a fire that left their house unlivable say that their insurance company’s mishandling of the situation has left them essentially homeless for nearly a year and a half.  

Couple Says Insurance Company’s Mishandling Of Fire Claim Has Made Them Homeless

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's general assignment reporter, Clair McFarland.

Clair McFarland

Politics

Wyoming doesn’t charge sales taxes on large data center equipment purchases because lawmakers in 2010 wanted to compete with Texas to attract a major tech company’s project, legislative debates show. 

Eleven years and potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in unrealized sales tax revenues later in 2021, a Republican state representative from Rock Springs, Clark Stith, tried to undo the state’s sales tax exemption.

Advocates of the energy, steel and tech industries opposed Stith. So did many of his Republican colleagues, Cheyenne-area local government leaders, and economic development groups.

[{"type":"text","text":"The exemption remains today. "}]

Many data center companies over the years have ignored the Wyoming Department of Revenue’s requests to report how much they’ve saved in sales taxes. The ones that have reported have logged more than $166 million in tax savings.

[{"type":"text","text":"But sales tax exemptions aren’t the whole revenue picture:"}]

Advocates of the exemption have argued for nearly two decades that the law incentivizes data centers to build in Wyoming; and those facilities then pay significant property and electricity taxes, generate jobs, and boost the economy. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Winners And Losers"}]

the Feb. 17, 2010, debate in the Wyoming House of Representatives have echoed into 2026.

Some lawmakers wanted to craft business incentives in state law to attract companies and jobs to Wyoming and compete with other states.

Others said it’s not right for the government to be selective about business and “pick the winners and losers.”

The economic development proponents won the data centers argument in 2010.

Then-Rep. Peter Illoway, R-Cheyenne, proposed House Bill 67 to exempt data centers that buy or rent more than $2 million in computing equipment in a year from paying sales taxes for that year. The centers hoping to qualify for that exemption were also required to:

[{"type":"text","text":"• Have a physical location in Wyoming."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"• Spend at least $5 million in capital costs on their facility."}]

• Receive certification from the Wyoming Business Council — which is the state’s economic development agency — that they’d create an “appropriate” number of jobs in Wyoming.

[{"type":"text","text":"• Keep adequate documentation of these proofs. "}]

Then-Rep. James Byrd, D-Cheyenne, cosponsored the bill. He also proposed the “appropriate” jobs requirement as an amendment, and the House majority approved.

Byrd is now campaigning in the Democratic primary election to become a U.S. senator for Wyoming. His campaign team did not respond to a Thursday voicemail request for comment.

Illoway told Cowboy State Daily in a Thursday phone interview that as he recalls it, Wyoming was only courting one data center at the time. The economic development group Cheyenne LEADS was pushing for the sales tax exemption law. The governor’s office was also involved, he recalled.

Illoway told his House colleagues during the Feb. 17, 2010, debate that Texas was vying for a data center, and “my understanding is, Wyoming and Texas are in competition,” according to 

Rep. Jack Landon, R-Sheridan, derided the bill as government intrusion and criticized its favor toward larger projects over smaller ones.

“I know I must be a minority voice in opposing these,” he said, “but I think it’s important that the people of Wyoming know that we all don’t think alike. And there is a way to have a government that is more even-handed, and that we don’t have to come down here and pick the winners and losers.”

Both Landon and Illoway had leadership status, as they were both committee chairs at that time.

Rep. Michael Madden, R-Buffalo, had cosponsored the bill. But he ultimately voted against it and voiced disappointment that the House wouldn’t put a sunset, or expiration date, on the exemption.

“You’re really making a stab in the dark,” said Madden. “The people that sponsor this say they don’t want a sunset date. Well I don’t like to have a gun held to my head.”

Illoway countered, saying businesses like to have stable policy environments.

“Generally the power rates are provided for over 20 years,” Illoway said, adding that the data center hoped to build an “enormous building, very expensive.”

He said he doubted whether the business would want to settle in Wyoming when facing a sunset date on the sales tax exemption.

Byrd agreed. He pointed to Wyoming’s reliable power sourcing and other data-center-friendly attributes.

Landon seized on the notion. He rattled off features like Wyoming’s low taxes, low crime rates, ready supply of electricity, livable communities and lack of income tax.

 “If we can’t attract businesses with those types of assets, I just can’t imagine why we’d want to add this to it,” he said.

Madden and Landon were part of a tiny minority. Only one more House lawmaker, Gillette-based Republican Rep. Sue Wallis, voted against the exemption.

On the Senate side, the bill garnered 23 aye-votes and seven all-Republican nay-votes.

Two of those nays remain in the chamber today: Sens. Cale Case, R-Lander, and Dan Dockstader, R-Afton.

[{"type":"text","text":"Gov. Dave Freudenthal signed the bill into law March 5, 2010."}]

As the administration shifted from Freudenthal, a Democrat, to his Republican successor Gov. Matt Mead, the industry momentum continued. The Legislature in 2011 expanded the exemption to include uninterrupted power, heating, cooling, and air quality equipment as well.

[{"type":"text","text":"Mead signed that expansion into law Feb. 18, 2011."}]

By 2021, Stith and the rest of the Legislature faced looming budget cuts and the COVID-19 policy whirlwind.

Gov. Mark Gordon had proposed both likely and worst-case scenario budget cut choices to the Legislature. The latter category included a potential $2.7 million cut of the public funds marked to help pay for home care for elderly people, Stith noted.

By then, data centers had saved at least $124.3 million in sales taxes from the exemption, according to 

That figure appears significantly underreported: the Wyoming Department of Revenue requested tax savings numbers from 10 data centers in early 2021, and only heard back from three of those, the department’s report says.

Stith presented his bill to repeal the sales tax exemption 

He called it unfair that small businesses pay sales taxes when they replace their computers, but huge data centers don’t.

“I don’t see that there’s a reason, really, that we should discriminate against small businesses, in favor of large businesses,” he said. “The biggest beneficiaries of the sales tax exemption tend to be … very, very large companies.”

Roughly the same arguments legislators bandied in 2010 recurred in that committee meeting.

Independent Rep. Jim Roscoe, of Wilson, noted that data centers benefitted from Wyoming’s low-tax environment already. Rep. Tim Hallinan, R-Gillette, noted that by settling in Wyoming, they’re paying significant property taxes into local government coffers.

Stith rebutted the idea that the sales tax exemption incentivizes the companies to settle in Wyoming.

[{"type":"text","text":"California had several data centers but lacked that exemption, he noted."}]

 between friendly policy environments and data center establishment across states.

On the other hand, Wyoming’s cooler weather and ample energy product offer non-policy-related incentives to the centers, for which internal cooling and power available are vital.  

[{"type":"text","text":"Stith had few allies in that meeting."}]

Cheyenne’s new Mayor Patrick Collins opposed the repeal. So did Laramie County Commission Chair Gunnar Malm, economic development group Cheyenne LEADS, and the state’s economic development agency: the Wyoming Business Council.

[{"type":"text","text":"Energy, tech, and raw materials sector advocates also opposed Stith."}]

His one ally in the public comment segment of that meeting was an environmental group, the Powder River Basin Resource Council. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Wyoming hosted around four data centers at that time."}]

 31 data centers, including 27 in the Cheyenne area.

Cheyenne LEADS disputes the figure, listing 24 in the Cheyenne area, including those in construction and planning phases.

Wyoming Business Council CEO Josh Dorrell did not respond by publication to an email requesting the exact number of data centers in the state.

Rep. Chuck Gray, R-Casper, proposed an amendment at the 2021 meeting to shift any tax revenues from Stith’s exemption repeal into a safety net fund for shortfalls in K-12 education. His amendment failed.

Then, Gray and Hallinan voted with three other Republicans and the committee’s lone Democrat, Rep. Mike Yin of Jackson, to kill the bill and keep the sales tax exemption on the books.

Roscoe and two Republicans — Committee Chair Steve Harshman (Casper) and Rep. Mark Baker, (Rock Springs) — voted on the losing side in favor of Stith’s repeal.  

[{"type":"text","text":"But Then, Artificial Intelligence"}]

Gray, who later became Secretary of State and is now campaigning for U.S. House, now vocally opposes data centers.

But, he said in a Thursday text message, “In 2021, no one had any idea where the AI (artificial intelligence) revolution was heading or the massive demands it would place on our power grid and water resources.”

Wyoming families are “right to be concerned about the real impacts on our infrastructure, our way of life, and our rural communities,” he said.

Gray also criticized one of his nine opponents in the race for the Republican nomination, Reid Rasner, for Rasner’s pro-data center stance, which he called "totally reckless." 

 that he’s “100% pro-business” and believes local governments, not federal decisionmakers, should decide whether to accept data centers.

[{"type":"text","text":"Data center policy is a wedge in the Republican party."}]

President Donald Trump is calling for data center construction to help feed AI development and beat China in the technology race. 

, conversely, for a slow-down or moratorium on data center approvals. They’re in 

 Congressional delegates like Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

 that data centers paid $10.37 million to the Laramie County community in property taxes from 2012-2015. They've also contributed $111.8 million in other sales and use taxes overall, including an estimated $27 million in sales tax on power from 2018-2024.

[{"type":"text","text":"Research And Wind"}]

Seth Carson, who had cosponsored the tax exemption bill in 2010 when he served as a Democratic state House representative, voiced mild surprise Thursday at how much the issue, and the industry, have exploded.

“To be completely honest with you, I wonder if I’d do the same thing now, knowing what’s happened,” he said.

In 2010, every voting Democrat in the Wyoming Legislature voted in favor of the sales tax exemption.

“My big focus was to make sure we were thoughtful about wind energy development,” Carson recalled. Also, he added, “We were thinking about the supercomputing thing the University of Wyoming signed on to.”

In partnership with the University of Wyoming, the National Center for Atmospheric Research Wyoming Supercomputing Center opened its doors in Cheyenne in 2012.

It helped pave the way for the subsequent Microsoft datacenter — a development then-Gov. Matt Mead sought and lauded as badly — needed diversity in the state’s economy.

The state had offered nearly $11 million in incentives to Microsoft, Mead 

Today, Trump and other leading Republicans see data centers as part of a 

[{"type":"text","text":"That wasn’t Carson’s intent, he said."}]

“I’d much rather we were powering a data center with wind energy than firing up a coal mine … if we’re all going to need computers, which we do,” he said.

[{"type":"text","text":"Why We Don’t Get Reports Lately"}]

The Wyoming Business Council still has a role in certifying data centers that seek tax exemption.

Wyoming had a law on the books for roughly a decade directing its Department of Revenue to compile reports on the unrealized sales taxes data centers would have paid without the exemption.

But the law didn’t have “teeth” punishing data centers that didn’t respond to the department’s inquiries, Department of Revenue Director Brett Fanning said in a Friday phone interview.

Numerous data centers did not respond to the department’s inquiries and didn’t report their tax savings.

Pro-economic development legislators pushed through a popular tax break for huge data centers in 2010. A rogue Republican tried to undo it in 2021, but his GOP colleagues, industry advocates, and economic development agencies opposed him.

One More For The Road: Friday, September 29, 2023

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