The Wyoming Board of Equalization has agreed to honor a property tax cap it called unconstitutional while a court challenge over the cap is ongoing.
The board, which is responsible for certifying whether Wyoming’s property tax assessments are fair under the law and constitution, declared in a June 11 report that a 4% cap on annual, residential property tax increases the Legislature passed in 2024 defies the Wyoming Constitution’s call for full-value, uniform property tax values.
The board majority said it would not enforce the cap in an announcement that threw county assessors into uncertainty with the prospect of reevaluating their property tax values as if that law weren’t in place.
Gov. Mark Gordon, through the Wyoming Attorney General’s Office, filed a court challenge June 16 in Laramie County District Court, urging the court to make the board follow the law and to declare the law constitutional.
On June 19, Laramie County District Court Judge Nathaniel Hibben ordered the board to honor the cap — at least for three weeks during his initial review of the case.
Meanwhile on Monday, the board sued back, urging Hibben to free it from following the cap law and to declare it unconstitutional.
Those bigger constitutional questions are pending.
But the board and the governor’s office came to an agreement that Hibben cemented with a Thursday order. The board has agreed to honor the 4% cap on property tax increases until the case is over, or until a “further order of the Court” frees it from that obligation, the order says.
Hibben had set a hearing for Monday, but he canceled that with his Thursday order, since that hearing had been set to determine whether the Board of Equalization should honor the cap throughout its summertime assessment process and perhaps longer as the case wears on.
The upshot is the board will certify otherwise-lawful property tax values from county assessors that are capped at 4% growth from year to year — despite its pronounced concerns that the cap taxes similar homes differently and produces irrational results, and that the cap defies the Wyoming Constitution.
Hibben’s order says neither the board nor the governor are conceding any losses in their larger constitutional arguments by reaching this opinion.
This case is ongoing.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
