Dollar deception

Weston County officials say they’re facing budget shortfalls this year due to property tax reductions enacted by the Wyoming Legislature — but that explanation doesn’t account for a mysterious $8 million shift in how the county’s finances are being reported. Even more concerning is the refusal of county officials to explain the change, or even acknowledge it publicly.

Earlier this summer, the News Letter Journal reported on a decrease in the county’s assessed valuation, which is expected to result in roughly $1.3 million less in revenue for the current budget year. That shortfall is real and worth public discussion, but it does not explain why this year’s county budget omits more than $8 million that appeared in the previous year’s report.

We do not believe the change stems from a fiscal crisis — but is actually the result of a decision to simply stop reporting the full amount of cash the county has on hand. Last year’s budget showed millions in reserves and investments that this year’s does not. When we contacted Clerk Becky Hadlock and all five Weston County commissioners in writing — asking them to clarify whether the money was spent, reallocated or merely hidden from public view — none of them responded. No one addressed it during the county’s public budget hearing either.

That kind of silence undermines public trust.

The lack of transparency is part of a disturbing pattern. For many years, the Weston County Clerk’s office published more than 50 pages of financial statements with the budget on the county’s website. Since 2021, under Clerk Hadlock, that level of reporting has dropped by over 95%, with only a single summary page now available to the public—one that mirrors the legal notice published in the county’s official newspaper of record, the Weston County Gazette.

Just as alarming is the fact that the Gazette failed to ask any questions about this change or the missing funds during the budget hearing. Worse still, its coverage of the meeting didn’t even mention the total amount of the county’s budget. That kind of reporting does nothing to hold public officials accountable — or to inform the taxpayers they serve.

Meanwhile, the News Letter Journal recently reported that Weston County is holding more than $12 million in investments — more than the entire general fund budget the commissioners just approved. That story sparked public concern and prompted some residents and officials to question why services were being cut while millions remain unused. 

Instead of engaging in that important conversation, however, county officials appear to have taken steps to obscure the existence of those taxpayer dollars altogether.

There are only two plausible explanations for this shift in reporting:

• Clerk Hadlock made the change, and all five commissioners either failed to notice or chose to remain silent when approving a budget that no longer reflects the full scope of the county’s financial position.

• The Clerk and a majority of the commissioners agreed — behind closed doors — to remove the information without public discussion. If that happened, it would constitute a violation of Wyoming’s open meetings law, and any commissioner who wasn’t part of that discussion had a duty to raise the issue at the budget hearing.

Either scenario is unacceptable.

County residents deserve full transparency. They deserve to know how much of their tax money the county is holding in reserves. They deserve to understand why that money isn’t being used to maintain services. And they deserve elected officials who are willing to provide honest, public answers — not stonewalling and silence.

It’s time for the Weston County Commission and Clerk Becky Hadlock to explain what happened — and for the public to demand that their leaders show them the money.