The number of amendments tells you more about this budget than any press release could.
On second reading in the Wyoming House of Representatives, amendments exploded compared to prior budget cycles and compared to the Senate’s work this year. The spike was dramatic. The debate lasted 20 hours. The Senate completed its second reading in two.
Third reading told the same story. Nineteen hours in the House. Five in the Senate.
That kind of gap does not signal smooth governance. It signals a chamber wrestling with a product that required rebuilding on the floor or one where leadership enforced discipline rather than invited debate.
Look at the structure behind it. Six of the seven members of the House Appropriations Committee are Freedom Caucus members or Freedom Caucus-aligned, many only on their second term.
House Appropriations Chair John Bear, R-Gillette, functions as the de facto leader of both.
It has already been revealed that he provided members with “scripts” as they worked the budget. Questions on the floor further revealed that most of the cuts were made without any discussion with the departments impacted.
In prior budget years, amendments reflected broader negotiation across both chambers. This year, the Freedom Caucus majority held the line in near-complete alignment with the House Appropriations Committee’s position.
This was coordinated.
Now consider the narrative driving it. The Freedom Caucus publicly claimed $1.5 billion in savings compared to the Governor’s recommended budget.
That number has campaign value. It fits neatly into messaging about shrinking government. Any amendment restoring funding reduces that headline number. Every restoration weakens the claim. That creates a powerful incentive to hold the line, even when cuts lack any clear performance justification.
Campaign math becomes budget math.
Then examine what those cuts actually hit.
The University of Wyoming faced a $40 million reduction framed on the floor as a way to “get their attention.” The Wyoming Business Council was defunded based in part on a CEO comment – that the agency could use as much as $1 billion to get Wyoming in top business shape – but that was never an actual funding request.
On the floor, court security funding was targeted over a disagreement with a Wyoming Supreme Court decision. Fire suppression, invasive grass control, Medicaid Home Health, and Wyoming Public Media faced crippling cuts or were eliminated entirely.
A budget allocates resources. It does not discipline institutions for political disagreement. When funding becomes leverage, policy becomes punishment.
Now look at the numbers behind the savings claim. Several cuts fund only the first year of the biennium and leave the second year exposed, creating pressure for a large supplemental budget in 2027.
Capital construction projects were moved to a separate bill — that $170M was labeled a cut rather than a shift. The Joint Appropriations Committee eliminated the $111.8M for state employee raises that would have covered inflation and a tight labor market, but the House restored that late Saturday on a compromise to use severance taxes for them.
Here’s the kicker: $410M of those claimed savings aren’t Wyoming dollars at all. That is federal funding eliminated when matching state dollars were cut—more than the $358M decrease in state General Funds.
Savings on paper today create real instability tomorrow. Wyoming families and businesses will feel the difference when services are cut, positions are vacant, and a supplemental request arrives in 2027.
The broader consequences fall on real Wyoming communities.
The University of Wyoming is the state’s only four-year university. It supplies nurses, engineers, teachers, accountants, ranch managers, and entrepreneurs. The Wyoming Business Council signals whether this state welcomes investment. Small towns across Wyoming depend on these institutions as employers and service providers. When they’re cut for leverage, everybody feels it, not just the bureaucrats in Cheyenne.
When six legislators hold concentrated budget authority and discourage meaningful floor scrutiny, accountability should increase. Instead, transparency narrows. Debate stretches into 20-hour sessions while bloc discipline holds firm.
That is not performance-based fiscal oversight. That is consolidation of control paired with a campaign message.
Government is how the community manages itself. A budget is the clearest expression of how that management will occur. When the budget becomes a vehicle for protecting a talking point, the consequences extend well beyond this session.
Here is what happens next and most citizens never see it:
A budget conference committee includes five Senators and five Representatives. In a first conference, members may address only the differences between the two versions. If that effort fails, a second conference allows the entire bill to be rewritten.
The Senate largely returned to the governor’s recommended budget.
The House held to the Joint Appropriations version. That means the coming negotiation will not resemble a routine compromise. It will be the John Bear version versus the Senate version, with Wyoming’s fiscal stability in the balance.
Watch the conference. Ask your legislators where they stand.
Budgets reveal priorities. This one reveals a strategy.
Gail Symons can be reached at GailSymons@mac.com
