Concentration at Crossover

Legislature continues hard work as bills leave their house of origin

Cheyenne – The 2015 Legislative session is at the halfway point: crossover. In this session, the House sent 157 bills to the Senate and the Senate sent 103 bills to the House. A bill relating to asset forfeiture was the first bill to pass both legislative bodies and is on its way to the Governor’s desk.

“I am incredibly proud of our legislators, they are working hard and putting in the long hours to make sure that we continue to move Wyoming forward,” said Representative Rosie Berger, Majority Floor Leader. “We heard 257 bills in committees and on the floor and have moved 157 bills to the Senate and have already begun to tackle what they have sent our way.”

This session saw 24 bills related to education in the House and the Senate. The topics ranged from curriculum, to testing, to standards reviews, to the creation of a distance education task force. Wyoming’s most valuable resource has always been its people and its children are the future of this great state. The Legislature’s commitment to providing them with a world-class education is unwavering.

Speaker of the House Kermit Brown has passionately argued on behalf of the children of Wyoming multiple times this session. “We need to prepare our kids for the global marketplace, and that means giving them access to all the information that is out there and teaching them how to interpret what is in front of them.”

The Legislature continues to take a proactive role in supporting and developing Wyoming’s energy industry, as well as providing policy that encourages entrepreneurialism and business recruitment to the state. Ensuring Wyoming has a thriving economy is of the highest priority.

The support for Wyoming’s energy industry continues with a bill looking to create a task force to study and make recommendations for a fair, viable, and simplified system of valuation and taxation for minerals.

The House passed a repeal of malt beverage tax, encouraging and promoting the growing industry of microbreweries as well as continuing to support the state’s hospitality industry. With the passage of Senate files that give preference points for the use of Wyoming materials, give exemptions for commercial driver’s licenses to local companies, and authorize worker’s compensation coverage for all county officials, it’s clear that Wyoming is open for business.

Infrastructure is a key component of providing a business friendly climate. Landfill remediation bills are working their way through the session this year, as is the extension of the Wyoming Telecommunications Act.

“Building a brighter future for Wyoming is the goal of every legislator here,” said Senate President Phil Nicholas. “We have worked on major bills that will increase jobs, improve infrastructure, and continue to evaluate how to use the taxes from our mineral industry most effectively. We are currently working on SF 122, named Vision 2020, which would create a modeling tool so in the future the Legislature can make data-based decisions on how much money to spend versus how much money to save.”

The House and Senate began debating this year’s Supplemental Budget bill yesterday. The funding strategy put forth by the Joint Appropriations Committee would have programs receive payment in stages, as capital gains become available in 2015 and 2016. This plan will slow down the growth of the state’s rainy day account but will ensure that capital construction projects continue to be funded over the following two to six years. The budget bill is presented in mirror sessions to both legislative branches.

“Our priorities with this supplemental budget were to take care of Wyoming’s most vulnerable, to take advantage of programs that had matching funds available, and to provide funding for one-time expenditures,” House Speaker Pro Tem Tim Stubson explained.

Providing additional health care programs and resources has been a major issue this session and has seen a multitude of bills related to the matter. Bills include permitting health care sharing, extending the Wyoming Health Insurance Pool Act, providing some compensation to hospitals for uncompensated care, and providing nursing education programs are all still being worked on by the Legislature.

As with all sessions, the Legislature continues to fight for state sovereignty rights and continue to support local governments and the personal freedoms of Wyoming citizens.

The belief that the federal government is broken is wide-spread through the Legislature and it has become apparent that some are done waiting for the problem to be fixed in Washington D.C. Two bills came out the House that call upon Congress to pass a balanced budget amendment.

While pushing Congress to balance its budget, Wyoming continues to follow its own methods of ensuring local governments have a high level of autonomy and the funding they need to function effectively.

“We continue to stop federal overreach from Washington D.C. and to solve Wyoming problems with Wyoming solutions,” said Senate Majority Floor Leader Eli Bebout. “We appreciate and support Wyoming’s citizens’ right to personal freedoms and our policy efforts prove that. We also agree with the notion that the best government is closest to the people and fund local government projects and their initiatives. The most important thing for Wyoming is jobs and a thriving economy.”

Personal freedom bills that are going through the Legislature include bills relating to trespassing issues, protecting land owners from pipeline incidents, allowing for the sale of locally grown food to individuals, and the protection of personal assets from seizure.

The Legislature entered this session with a handful of priorities and a clear vision of what they wanted to accomplish; thoughtful of how they could best represent the citizens of Wyoming and what kind of legacy they wanted to leave for future generations. At the halfway point of the session, it’s clear that it is full steam ahead.

Medicaid Fails the Senate

SF129 failed on with a 19-11 vote

Cheyenne, WY – A bill supporting the expansion of Medicaid failed the Wyoming Senate today. The bill, sponsored by Senators Von Flatern, Emerich, and Pappas and Representative Wilson, failed with a 19-11 vote.

 “I commend the Senate for working incredibly hard over the last two weeks to try and put together a piece of legislation that proposed to expand Medicaid services on a cost neutral basis to the general fund,” said Senate President Phil Nicholas, “The bill was improved at several stages but did not achieve majority approval of the Senate. Many Senators campaigned on the promise to not expand Medicaid services. The bill was worked hard and all Senators had a difficult final decision to make.”

SF129 was a working bill of the Governor’s SHARE plan. It had an amendment coming into the Senate that added Senator Charles Scott’s health savings account model but that amendment was defeated by the Senate last Friday. Today, with an additional two amendments added, the bill was still defeated.

Amendments to the bill included requiring Medicaid enrollees to work 32 hours a week, though today an amendment from Senator Meier allowed for the exemption of the work requirement for students.

There were concerns voiced from multiple Senators that other states who have enacted Medicaid have had a plethora of administrative difficulties when rolling out the program, that adding this program would only increase the federal debt, and that Wyoming has succeeded in finding their own way to serve the needs of the citizens in the past.

A bill brought forth by Representative Wilson that would have introduced a Medicaid bill into the House was withdrawn from further consideration today from the House Labor, Health, & Social Services committee. During the committee hearing, Chairman Harvey said “the House could amend this but it would be an exercise in futility, the Senate won’t pass this no matter what we do.” Chairman Harvey is further resolved to find solutions that will ease hospitals losses and help Wyoming citizens with medical needs.

Op-Ed: Balancing Act

By:
Senator Tony Ross
Representative Steve Harshman

Co-Chairs of the Joint Appropriations Committee

Wyoming is consistently ranked one of the best run states in the nation. Wyomingites are never surprised to hear this fact; the Wyoming way of life means getting required tasks done, living within our means, and planning for the future. It’s how Wyoming families operate and it is the way our state operates. It was with these priorities we set the biennium budget last year, and it was through this lens we appraised the supplemental budget requests this year.

Last year we passed a strong 2015/2016 biennium budget that prioritizes Wyoming needs and invests in Wyoming’s people, jobs, communities, responsible mineral development and education.  We have continued these priorities in a very modest supplemental budget.

The Joint Appropriations Committee spent over three weeks evaluating the Governor’s supplemental budget requests, weighing priorities against available funds, and making the hard decisions. Striking a balance between saving, investing, and spending is imperative to continuing our momentum in Wyoming.

Our revenues are closely tied to the value of minerals.  Minerals have kept our taxes low and our services strong.  This reliance on minerals has always made our revenues volatile and with the federal war on coal and the unpredicted drop in oil and natural gas prices, the January revenue projections show a $222 million shortfall over October predictions.  Thus, it was time to tighten our belts and prioritize where we should spend and where we could save in order to close the budget gap.  We kept our commitments on the previous appropriations, we were proactive in finding money, and we were practical in appropriating funds.

To meet the needs of the Wyoming citizens, we prioritized funding requests and made the best use of funds available. We placed the highest priority on the citizens who are the most at risk – appropriating funds for nursing homes, DD waivers, and preschools. We moved down the list and prioritized one-time expenses, infrastructure improvements, and programs that had matching funds available. Finally, we prioritized funds towards different on-going programs, and placed the monies in the appropriate project and investment accounts.

Through this supplemental budget we continue to show our support and stress the importance of investing in education, infrastructure, and local communities while advancing projects that will grow the state.  

Funds are set up to be paid out in three cycles. This plan helped us to keep Wyoming operating in the black, while closing the $222 million shortfall the CREG is expecting. The highest priority items will be paid as soon as the bill passes. The next set of priorities will be paid when the state realizes its capital gains on July 1, 2015. And the final set of priorities will receive funding from 2016 capital gains.

By using this unique approach in how we appropriate funding, using currently realized capital gains, we intercept funds scheduled to go into the Legislative Stabilization Reserve Account (LSRA) and redirect those monies for the continuing investment and growth in Wyoming.

The budget bill will now work its way through the legislative process; but we are confident that as a Legislature we will continue to make solid fiscal decisions and live within our means.  Balancing the blessings we have from mineral revenues and their volatility with the current needs of the state is of the utmost importance for the future of Wyoming.