LANDER — Around 180 residents of Lander and surrounding areas clustered Tuesday into a convention room at The Inn to hear Gov. Mark Gordon forecast hopes and concerns about the state’s coming budget session, which convenes Monday.
The forum was peaceful and produced occasional loud bursts of applause. Nobody heckled or insulted the governor or other speakers. Standing, overflow attendees lined three of the room’s four walls.
Gordon in November proposed an $11.13 billion two-year statewide budget, which would include state money and federal pass-through dollars.
The legislative Joint Appropriations Committee last month denied several of the governor’s recommendations in an early draft version of the budget bill.
It also proposed a $40 million cut from the University of Wyoming’s state-funded grant, and proposed pulling some items — like a federally-funded health program — into their own standalone bills.
Gordon told Fremont County residents that spinning off some expenditures into separate legislation from the master budget bill could make the final budget look much smaller than his recommendation, without actually reducing the state’s bottom line.
Accompanying Gordon were Fremont County Assessor Tara Berg, local businessman Cade Maestas, Lander Mayor Missy White, and a moderator: League of Women Voters President Linda Barton.
Berg urged people to consider that reducing property taxes more than the 25% cut and various exemptions already in play will have consequences for local services.
So too did White, who said it would take more than $400 million to repair all of Lander’s infrastructure, but “we take in $1.6 (million) on the optional 1% (tax for) our roads.”
White asked attendees to consider shortfalls in other services, like local fire districts and school districts, due to property tax cuts.
Maestas focused his speech on civility.
“We’ve let politics become our entertainment,” said Maestas. “There’s absolute statements. There’s name calling. It’s pretty crazy that the people we’re electing to represent us — I don’t know about you, but at some of the top levels of government — that’s not how I talk.
"So, I hope they wouldn’t represent me in that way.”
Our Question: Culture Wars And The University
Cowboy State Daily asked during a later, small-group press conference if there’s a responsible way for Wyoming to address an apparent cultural rift between the University of Wyoming and the Legislature.
Some have attributed the proposed $40 million cut to the university at least in part to lawmakers’ disapproval of some more socially liberal programs within the institution.
The university should listen to the Legislature “on that piece,” Gordon told Cowboy State Daily.
“I think they also need to listen to the people of Wyoming, and not try to sort of be in their face,” he said.
But, said Gordon, people on both sides of the debate should “tune this down.”
The state should focus on the university’s mission to educate, drive research and economic improvement.
As to the university’s handling of the cut, “I have for some time believed that the university really ought to be able to stand more on its own two feet,” said Gordon. “So I think it’s a great time for the university to look deeply at how to raise more of the funding that’s necessary.”
That will fuse the university more with its other contributors, and away from “a sense of, ‘We just gotta go to the Legislature,’ and, ‘Why are they trying to control us?’” the governor said.
The university did not respond by publication to a late-day request for comment.
On Whether Lawmakers Know What They're Doing
In the audience question segment, people filed into a line behind a podium facing Gordon.
Kirk Schmidt reached the podium first, and noted his 39 years in the school finance field.
He condemned a draft proposal the legislative Select Committee on School Recalibration advanced last month to make all school districts use the state’s insurance pool rather than being allowed to contract for their own insurance sources.
That committee is reevaluating how much money Wyoming’s K-12 education system required. It’s doing so under the pressure of a pending court case on just how much education spending the state Constitution demands.
“They’ve very much ignored the cost to the state — the overall cost,” said Schmidt, adding that the maneuver would require more staff in the state’s Administration and Information division.
Gordon indicated agreement, saying the bulk insurance push “ignores the fact that you’ve got to fund it.”
He said non-state employees in that pool, like firefighters and police officers, may be “whipsawed” by the change too.
Recalibration Committee Co-Chair Scott Heiner, R-Green River, was not at the forum, but he responded in a Tuesday text message to Cowboy State Daily.
“The committee worked on recalibration all summer with 21 experts in the field of education from around the country,” wrote Heiner. “The committee approved the (proposed) changes unanimously in a bipartisan 12-0 vote” that included the insurance change.
“These decisions were weighed carefully as we sought solutions that would be best for public education, educators, as well as the state of Wyoming,” concluded Heiner.
Heiner’s co-chair Sen. Tim Salazar, R-Riverton, did not respond by publication to a text message request for comment.
That wasn’t the only question Gordon fielded on education.
Travis Sweeney, business manager for Lander-based Fremont County School District No. 1, questioned whether the recalibration proposal now in play would erode local control for districts.
Gordon said it would.
“I’m not clear they (lawmakers) have an understanding of what they’ve actually imposed,” said the governor, adding that he’s concerned lawmakers haven’t come to understand fully the new dimension: of recent legislation allowing charter schools to open with more ease statewide.
That One Guy Who Brought The Friction
A man who claimed the town of Pavillion as home said he filed a public records request for Wyoming Business Council finances and has doubts about the agency’s work.
Lawmakers are advancing a budget amendment and a standalone bill to defund and dismantle the Wyoming Business Council, which is a state agency that gives grants and loans to communities and businesses in the name of economic development.
Gordon pointed to state Auditor Kristi Racines’ expense-tracking page Wyopen.gov, but said that, “We could do (spending transparency) better and I’m committed to trying to make it cleaner and better.”
He also noted that the broad-strokes agency budgets are public documents.
Fighting for its existence, the Wyoming Business Council has pointed to the projects it has helped lure to Wyoming and the infrastructure it helps communities build.
Gordon has defended the Wyoming Business Council as well, though he proposed cutting its budget request in half for the next biennium.
Tuesday, he repeated his ongoing request that the Legislature reform, rather than gut, the agency.
Dark Money, Suicide, Alcohol
Scotty Ratliff, who is a Riverton man, a longtime politico and former congressional staffer, voiced concerns about dark money influencing Wyoming elections.
“We’re losing huge control, and we’re being ran by out-of-state-money and, in my opinion, people,” said Ratliff. “I really think the state of Wyoming is in trouble if this continues.”
A flood of applause followed Ratliff from the podium.
Another man voiced concerns about suicide, its link to alcohol abuse and the cost alcohol abuse incurs each year to Wyoming.
Gordon put in “a plug” for his administration’s work in the mental health area and said that, though it’s “marginal,” it is a victory that Wyoming has gone from first in the nation for suicides per capita to third.
About Chuck Gray …
Lander resident Barbara Oakley said she read recently “that Secretary Gray had surrendered … significant amounts of our sensitive voter information to the federal government at their request,” and that bothers her.
She asked if there’s a way to prod the attorney general into investigating that.
Gordon, no fan of Gray’s typically, did not take the opportunity to condemn the secretary.
“He is a duly elected officer in his own right,” answered Gordon. “And I think that’s an issue between the voters and Secretary Gray.”
Gordon noted that Gray had conferred with the attorney general before the maneuver, adding that he didn’t know the content of those talks because of attorney-client privilege.
“Personally, I believe strongly both in our country’s Constitution delegating voting to the states, and in our state’s Constitution delegating (it) to the county clerks,” added Gordon.
These comments skirt a dust-up between Gray and the League of Women Voters over a January story in which Newsweek reported that Wyoming was among four states complying readily with a President Donald Trump administration request to hand voter rolls to the federal government.
Trump’s U.S. Department of Justice has asked all 50 states to hand over their voter rolls to the administration, giving it access to lists containing information such as dates of birth, driver’s license numbers and partial Social Security numbers, Newsweek reported.
The outlet added that some have condemned the requests as an attempt by the White House to create a national voter database and restrict access.
Wyoming’s League of Women voters condemned Gray in a Jan. 31 statement and urged Gordon and Attorney General Keith Kautz to examine the maneuver.
Gray’s Answer
Gray in a Tuesday email said he appreciates Gordon acknowledging “that we engaged in close consultation with the Attorney General.”
He also sent an earlier statement noting that the Wyoming Democratic Party had also condemned the maneuver.
“The Democrats’ false claims are driven by Trump Derangement Syndrome and left-wing hysteria, not the truth,” said Gray. “These claims are false, defamatory, and made with malice.”
He called the federal government’s request lawful, and said he complied to ensure Wyoming’s voter rolls are compliant with the Help America Vote Act and the Civil Rights Act.
“Contrary to the false claims made by both the Wyoming Democrats and the League of Women Voters, voter information has, and continues to remain, confidential under the law,” wrote Gray.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
