A Cheyenne-based judge on Friday ordered a Wyoming executive-branch tax board to apply a law capping residential property tax increases at 4% annually — for now — despite the board’s claims that the cap violates the Wyoming Constitution.
Laramie County District Court Judge Nathaniel Hibben in a Friday hearing held by virtual link granted the request of the Wyoming Attorney General’s Office, on behalf of Gov. Mark Gordon, that he block the Wyoming Board of Equalization from refusing to certify county assessors’ tax values this year.
Hibben has scheduled a July 6 hearing to revisit the issue in greater detail.
The board had announced in a public June 11 report that its majority has found the 4% tax increase cap enacted in 2024 unconstitutional.
The Wyoming Constitution calls for equal and uniform property taxes within each tax category, and this tax cap creates stark disparities in how some homes, despite being nearly identical, are taxed in different regions, the report says.
The state Constitution also allows the Legislature to craft property tax exemptions.
But whether that clause trumps the equal-and-uniform mandate was not part of Attorney General Deputy Jim Peters’ request for Hibben to place an immediate order on the board Friday.
Gordon Says Board Overstepped
Gordon through his AG’s office filed a court action Tuesday, urging the court to block the board’s actions and decide whether the tax cap is constitutional.
That complaint also accuses the Board of Equalization of violating its lawful authority by announcing its intention to refuse to certify property tax values with the cap in place — and by starting to apply that refusal as it works with counties this month.
The court will sort through the constitutional and authority arguments throughout this case, said Hibben on Friday.
But for now, Gordon’s counsel has shown that the board’s actions are fitted for an immediate, court-ordered pause, said the judge.
The two proofs Peters had to show to win the pause were that the board’s actions can cause irreparable harm, and that Gordon’s team is likely to win this case.
“The board might be right, or not,” said Hibben. “That question will be answered in time, applying, presumably, a rational basis level of review and established rules of constitutional interpretation.”
But for Friday, the judge said that “the state has made the requisite showing (to win a pause).”
For Now
The board’s deadline to certify property tax values is Aug. 3. But it’s undertaken some of the work to complete the process already.
Hibben ordered the board to enforce the 4% property tax increase cap during that work, and to presume that the things the Legislature has ordered it to do with respect to that cap are constitutional.
Peters had argued that as an executive-branch entity, the board’s duty is to presume that the state’s laws are constitutional. And the governor has a duty to ensure that his branch enforces the laws.
Still, the board can document what it sees as constitutional breaches over the coming weeks, said Hibben.
Cat Young, a Davis and Cannon attorney representing the Board of Equalization, had argued that the time was not right for an emergency pause on the board’s actions, since the deadline for certifying values is in August. She also noted that the board hasn’t yet had a chance to respond to the governor’s case against it in writing.
