Gov. Mark Gordon is asking the Wyoming Legislature for an $11.13 billion biennial state budget, up about $755 million from the prior budget cycle's $10.38 billion.
That includes a decrease in the University of Wyoming’s recent $553 million budget to $483.73 million, an increase in the Wyoming Department of Health’s $2.26 billion budget to $2.99 billion, and an increase in the Wyoming Department of Transportation's budget from $250.1 million to $282.8 million.
The governor is proposing some gouges, along with some boosts, to state agencies’ requests.
For example, the executive branch’s administration and information division recently received $979 million for the upcoming biennium, and the governor proposed $1.2 billion.
That figure encapsulates raises for state employees, Sen. Ogden Driskill, R-Devils Tower and Senate Appropriations member, told Cowboy State Daily in a Monday phone interview.
Gordon also said so, in a Friday preview of his budget proposal where he said it was time to “bring (employees) up to current pay tables and stay competitive in the market.”
“It’s a lean budget,” said Driskill. “He (Gordon) really has brought us back a budget that is pretty clean, pretty flat — which, considering the inflation that’s gone on — kudos to the governor. Pretty well done.”
The governor’s proposed budget increase from the 2025-26 biennium to the upcoming one represents a boost of about 7.27%.
The American dollar of November 2023, when Gordon would have been requesting the current budget, has the same buying power as $1.0633 as of September of this year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation data of the most recent month available.
That represents a 6.33% inflation figure nationally.
“Wouldn’t it be great if everything still cost what it did back a decade ago?” wrote Gordon in his budget narrative. “Despite all that will be said, this budget — like those before it — is fiscally responsible, consistent with modest, essential growth to maintain the essential services our citizens expect, and within the norms of overall inflation.”
If You Build It ...
The state construction department’s capital construction fund sought $561 million, yet the governor is asking for a lesser figure: $386.5 million.
Capital construction appropriations often fall short of requests, said Driskill, since that’s “always a huge wish list.”
“When times are good, everybody asks, and we always trim them back even when we’ve got a lot of money,” he said.
Wyoming’s school finance expenses for the biennium are estimated to require $2.2 billion.
Gordon did not vary that amount, leaving the figure as the education systems request.
Lawmakers are entering a recalibration year, where they’ll reassess the total costs of K-12 education.
They were under a judge’s order to add multiple specific goods and services to schools, but the Wyoming Supreme Court paused that order while an education legal challenge unfolds in the high court.
As to the proposed boost for state employee wages, House Appropriations Chair John Bear, R-Gillette, called that “interesting," especially in light of Gordon reaching the end of his two-term-limited tenure.
(Gordon may be able to remove the two-term limit by petitioning the Wyoming Supreme Court, however.)
Gordon already had “three tranches” of state employee pay raises in the past couple years, Bear noted. He said he can’t comment further on the proposed increase until he does more research.
Senate Appropriations Chair Tim Salazar, R-Riverton, did not respond to a text message and phone call request for comment by publication time.
Department Of Corrections
Gordon’s budget requests $346.1 million for the Wyoming Department of Corrections (DOC), down $4.4 million from what the agency requested but up $56 million from the prior budget of $290.1 million.
“This institution is a model of efficiency and effectiveness at housing and rehabilitating the incarcerated and supervision of probationers and parolees,” wrote the governor in his own narrative on the topic.
But it has a “chronic high number of employee vacancies” hampering the return of out-of-state prisoners, he said.
It needs $9.3 million to cover financial obligations to outside institutions for housing, he wrote.
“These funds were requested in the supplemental budget, but no action was taken by the Legislature in the 2025 session,” added Gordon.
The Legislature did not pass a supplemental budget in the 2025 session.
Driskill put the DOC increase in other terms, saying ICE is scouting new recruits armed with a huge new budget and attractive wages.
The federal agency could “come in and do a hit on our prison staff,” making the staffing shortage worse, he said.
Water
A proposed $6.2 million increase to the Wyoming Attorney General’s budget heading into the next biennium (still $3 million shy of the agency’s request) is to cover water battles with other states and governments, said Gordon in his narrative.
“Unhappily, in neighboring downstream states, irrigation districts, cities and others (people) also crave Wyoming water,” wrote Gordon. “We have a rendezvous with destiny and many of those states and districts are already armed with talented legal and engineering counsel.”
Wyoming is in drought, and the need for water control grows more pronounced, he wrote.
Gordon noted that he sought to add state engineer staff to southwestern Wyoming and lawyers to the AG’s office in prior budget requests.
“I am saddened to tell you because we were unable to rise to that challenge, Wyoming is now behind,” he wrote. "We are out-manned and out-gunned by virtually every other state on the Colorado River."
Department of Health
The governor’s request for the Wyoming Department of Health is $2.99 billion, which is $14 million less than the agency requests and more than $700 million above the agency’s $2.258 billion budget of the recent biennium.
“We must maintain access to safety net services for all Wyoming communities, including quality care for children, seniors, people with developmental disabilities, and others who lack physical or financial means,” wrote Gordon, who also touted the new federal Rural Health Transformation Program, which Wyoming is scrambling to establish.
Rep. Ken Pendergraft, R-Sheridan, chairs a subcommittee devoted to studying and cutting the Wyoming Department of Health’s budget, which is the largest agency budget in the state.
“Holy crap, they’re not getting the message,” said Pendergraft upon reading the governor’s proposed figures.
He wondered aloud if the governor and department were positing a large request to push an “Overton window,” or assertion about what’s politically acceptable.
“They’re going to ask for the sky and then they’re going to get less (cut),” Pendergraft theorized.
Part of the trouble with crunching WDH’s budget, said Pendergraft, is the complex terminology and budgeting processes.
It doesn’t have to be that complex, he said.
Pendergraft said he became interested in the WDH budget in the first place after hearing from constituents struggling to get services from it, and wondering if the agency could be made more efficient.
WDH Director Stefan Johannson had said during a Nov. 7 meeting of Pendergraft’s subcommittee that some of the agency’s complexities are due to federal grant streams and federal requirements.
One expenditure that looked like a boon to the Wyoming Hospital Association was actually a routing mechanism to use it as a pass-through for federal funds, said Johannson at the time.
Former state Rep. Pat Sweeney, a Republican from Casper, urged the subcommittee not to cut the agency’s budget, saying keeping it stagnant would amount to a cut in light of harrowing inflation rates.
Fires
Gordon is asking the Legislature to consider both preventative and firefighting programs in response to the wildfires that have blasted the state in the past two years.
“Wyoming is blessed with willing, competent, and committed volunteers who drop everything at moment’s notice to go fight fire, especially when a neighbor’s place is ablaze,” he wrote.
Indeed, it is common for Wyomingites to band together, share bulldozers and weed sprayers to defend their neighbors' farms and ranches.
Gordon encouraged the state to expand its Smoke Buster program, complete a restorative program initiated last year, and control invasive grasses and other flammables.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
