Wyoming people know what a real ledger looks like.
It sits on a kitchen table, or on the dash of a feed truck, or in a spreadsheet that gets updated after chores. A ledger does one job: it tells the truth about what you can afford, what you owe, and what you plan to handle next.
That is what the state budget is supposed to do. It’s our ledger.
Mark Law's recent letter to the editor put words to a concern many of us have felt while watching legislative Joint Appropriations Committee (JAC) hearings this winter: the committee's approach feels less like careful budgeting and more like ideological scoring.
When that posture hardens into budget language, the consequences land in real places: staffing gaps, deferred maintenance, delayed or cancelled programs, and agencies doing more with less until the "less" becomes failure.
Budgeting is a stress test.
It is complexity at scale, under a clock. It requires thousands of pages of reading, a working grasp of one-time money versus ongoing obligations, an eye for federal match traps, and the discipline to ask precise questions in public. Everyone crafting itcomes to Cheyenne with a day job and limited hours.
The budget does not care. It still demands fluency.
This is the reason that Appropriations committee assignments have consistently been made with a recognition of experience and expertise.
JAC membership between 2022 and 2026 shows a clear shift. The only representative not completely new is the House committee’s sole Democrat. The others have either three or five years in the House including the chairman.
The Senate side brings deeper tenure and leadership experience.
Those facts don't guarantee an outcome. They shape the odds.
A newer appropriations bench, operating under time pressure, tends to lean on themes that travel quickly. A seasoned bench tends to lean on mechanics that keep the books balanced and the state functioning.
Put those instincts in the same process and you get two different budget bills.
The calendar sharpens the risk.
The 2026 budget session schedule puts the budget bill on third reading Thursday, Feb. 19. Conference committee work begins immediately after, with reports expected by Thursday, March 5.
Day 20, the final day, lands on Friday, March 6.
That's a narrow window for the hardest work of the year.
Wyoming runs two mirror budget bills: one in the House, one in the Senate. Each chamber passes its own version. When those versions diverge, the rules send both bills to a joint conference committee.
Leadership appoints five conferees from each chamber. The rules require a majority from each chamber's prevailing side on third reading. The chair rotates by day, with the Senate chairing the first meeting.
The first conference committee has a limited lane. If it fails, later committees become "free" committees with wider authority. That freedom can unlock solutions. It also burns time, and time is the only resource the Legislature never gets to refill.
Here's the risk.
If the Joint Appropriations Committee produces a bill driven primarily by ideology, the Senate is likely to amend it heavily. That's what experienced appropriators do when the numbers don't hold together.
The result looks like two budgets that share a cover page and disagree on the details that matter.
Then the whole session leans on conference committee selection.
Conference committees are where budgets get saved or sunk. Wyoming voters don't pick conferees; leadership does.
When leadership chooses conferees with deep appropriations experience and real negotiating skill, the committee can bridge a chasm.
When leadership chooses conferees mainly for internal loyalty, the committee can dig in, posture, and run out the clock.
The House contains experienced appropriators and serious negotiators. Most of them are outside the Freedom Caucus orbit.
If leadership sidesteps those members and assigns conferees based on ideological reliability, the odds climb fast for gridlock and disarray.
Wyoming has seen tense budget finishes before.
The difference now is the combination: a compressed timeline, an inexperienced House appropriations bench, and an internal incentive structure that rewards conflict.
So here's the test you should apply over the next few weeks.
Watch who gets appointed to the budget conference committee. Watch whether leadership picks people who can read a budget, negotiate like adults, and keep Wyoming's priorities bigger than the latest outrage.
If the House sends conferees chosen mainly for ideological reliability, and the Senate sends conferees chosen for budget competence and negotiation skills, the result is predictable.
Second conference committee. End-of-session chaos. A budget shaped by exhaustion instead of judgment. Or worse, no budget at all.
That would require a special session to get the job done before current appropriations expire on June 30 – or Cheyenne looks more like DC: government shutdown.
Wyoming deserves better than that.
Gail Symons can be reached at: GailSymons@Mac.com
