The champion of a once-controversial effort to eliminate nearly all residential property taxes in Wyoming says now, two years later, he can’t support a ballot measure proposing to cut qualifying residential property taxes by 50%.
That’s because Rep. Steve Harshman’s 2024 bill to eliminate residential property taxes — in exchange for a 2% sales tax increase — had two things the 50% cut Proposition 1 does not, the Casper Republican noted in a Friday phone interview.
Harshman’s bill had a cap, so that people could only claim the exemption on the first $1 million of home value after the first year. It also had a backfill, the sales tax increase.
Had the bill passed, county assessors would still have used local home values to calculate tax payouts to communities.
“This is comparing apples to oranges,” said Harshman of his bill and Prop 1.
Property taxes fund public schools, community colleges, local governments and special districts. Firefighters are some of the most vocal opponents against plans to cut them.
Harshman answered the question publicly during a televised PBS candidate forum last week, as the Republican nominee running for state spPublic instruction.
Democratic nominee Ana Cordova also fielded questions next to Harshman that night.
Neither supports Prop 1.
“I will vote no on Prop 1 because of the harm it’s going to do to our schools and our local communities,” said Harshman.
He listed what he called problems with the initiative.
“Most of this rebate is gonna go to Teton County,” he noted.
Harshman clarified in his Friday interview that around 25% of the exemption will benefit the residents of Teton County, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Legislative Service Office.
The average Teton County resident would save nearly eight times as much money as the average non-Teton County resident, under a per-capita analysis.
Teton County is Wyoming’s wealthiest county. The county and city governments don’t assess the maximum amount of property taxes, while nearly all other Wyoming counties do. Meaning, even if Teton County local services suffer from the 50% cut, local governments can still assess more taxes.
“We’re going to see our homeowners’ insurance go up. We’re going to pay for this on the back end, so I’m really concerned about that,” said Harshman, referencing projected cuts to local services such as police and fire fighting.
Back It Up
Harshman became the poster child of property tax cut initiatives in 2024, when he sponsored a bill that sought to exempt residential property taxes for about 97% of Wyomingites, in exchange for a hike from a 4% state sales tax to 6%.
The exemption would have had a cap, so that it only applied on the first $1 million of home value after the first year, and the bill contained an escalator to adjust that cap with inflation.
Harshman’s blockbuster proposal coincided with skyrocketing property taxes. Wyoming home values spiked while other states enacted more restrictive COVID policies.
Fiery debates followed, and opposition bred strange bedfellows.
Reps. Reuben Tarver, R-Gillette, Ken Pendergraft, R-Sheridan, and Liz Storer, D-Jackson, said the measure was being rolled out too fast.
Then-Reps. Clark Stith, R-Rock Springs, and Jon Conrad, R-Mountain View, voiced concern that the bill would hurt the minerals and energy industry.
Stith also said it could sever people from paying directly into their communities, and habituate them to “using other people’s money.”
Some representatives from the northern districts, Harshman recalled Friday, worried about the bill’s impact on their local businesses because Montana doesn’t have sales tax.
The bill passed its first debate 31-29 but then died on third reading 47-14.
Nowadays
Many of the proponents of Prop 1 say property tax is an immoral form of taxation.
Harshman said Friday he didn’t think property tax was an immoral type of tax; he was just trying to bring people relief in 2024.
But Prop 1 leaves uncertainty as to how the Legislature will fill any shortfalls.
“I have no idea,” said Harshman in response to a question about whether the Legislature will raise sales taxes or build some other tax if the measure passes.
Either way, Harshman won’t be in the House of Representatives in January. If he wins Nov. 3, he’ll be superintendent of public instruction.
If he doesn’t, he’s missed his chance to run again for House, after a 23-year tenure.
The Relief
Other property tax relief bills passed in 2024 and after, however.
Harshman voted in favor of some but not all.
In 2024 the Legislature passed a 4% cap on property tax increases. Harshman voted against that one. He also voted against a 2025 law cutting 25% of property taxes for eligible homeowners that passed without an attached backfill.
Harshman voted aye, however, when the Legislature enacted a broadening of a property tax refund program and a 50% exemption for people over 65 who have paid property taxes in Wyoming for 25 years.
The All-Out Brawl
If it passes, Prop 1 would provide an alternate exemption option to cut 50% of residential property tax from home structures, not land.
The 25% exemption includes land.
Prop 1 would apply to people who swear they've lived in Wyoming for at least one year, and in that home for at least six months.
With the Democratic and minor parties relatively overpowered in Wyoming's major races for the past several years, Wyomingites have turned much of their election season fervor to the Prop 1 argument.
Proponents say property taxation is immoral, and governments should downsize their operations. Some, like state GOP Chair Bryan Miller, have suggested that Wyoming pull from its other state funds to fill the shortfalls.
Opponents say the state funds are already designated, and many come from finite resources such as severance taxes on Wyoming’s underground minerals. One opponent, Sen. Cale Case, R-Lander, also said that pulling local government and districts’ revenue from a statewide pool rather than local sources would detach people from local spending choices, making them think more like “trust fund babies.”
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
