Wyoming House rejects backfill for local governments

SHERIDAN — Just a few weeks after voting to support backfilling local municipalities in the supplemental budget if property tax cuts were passed, the Wyoming House of Representatives on Tuesday rejected proposals to do the same.

Push for a backfill came from lawmakers in an effort to lessen the impact of property tax relief and reform on tax-levying entities in the state’s eight counties with the lowest assessed valuation.

Earlier in the session, the House approved an amendment to the supplemental budget bill to allocate $72 million to distribute to cities and towns in those eight counties — Big Horn, Crook, Goshen, Hot Springs, Niobrara, Platte, Washakie, Weston counties — as well as the counties themselves and any special districts.

The Senate approved a somewhat similar measure, backing a $15 million amendment to backfill emergency services — such as fire and health care — and senior citizen service districts in Wyoming.

Last week, though, Senate leadership announced the upper chamber would not pass a supplemental budget, crafted by lawmakers in odd-numbered years to help pay for unanticipated and emergency expenses uncovered by the biennium budget created in even-numbered years.

After that announcement came a scramble as lawmakers attempted to amend bills to include funding for various expenses. Among them was an attempt to resurrect a backfill for local tax-levying entities.

Rep. J.T. Larson, R-Rock Springs, brought two amendments to Senate File 153, “Residential real property-taxable value,” to backfill local governments.

The first mirrored provisions approved by the House in the supplemental budget, though it included $36 million, rather than $72 million, over the next two tax years.

“That was when we were discussing a 50% tax cut. And now that we have discussed a 25% tax cut, (I) figured it was reasonable to cut that number in half,” Larson said.

The Legislature sent Senate File 69, “Homeowner property tax exemption,” to Gov. Mark Gordon’s desk earlier this week, and he signed it Tuesday.

The bill includes a 25% exemption on the first $1 million of a single-family home’s fair market value. The House backed a version of the bill, and others, to provide a 50% property tax exemption on a home’s fair market value.

Rep. JD Williams, R-Lusk, praised the proposal.

“We have discussed this at length, and it certainly will make a difference for hardship counties

in this state,” Williams said. Wyoming’s hardship counties are the eight with the lowest assessed valuation.

Larson’s first amendment failed by a vote of 17-43.

The second proposed amendment would have replaced up to 50% of local tax-levying entities’ lost revenue resulting from property tax reform and relief; the amendment would have appropriated $72 million over the next two tax years to do so.

Larson’s second amendment suffered a similar fate, failing by a vote of 19-41.

Much to Larson’s chagrin, neither amendment was debated extensively on the floor.

“This is a really important issue, and I guess only some of us care,” Larson said. He was met with groans from members of the House who were critical of his statement.

Taxable value bill

Following Wyoming voters’ November approval of Amendment A, lawmakers are left to determine a residential property tax assessment rate, as well as defining the residential property category and optional subcategory for owner-occupied residential properties.

Presently, all residential real property is taxed at 9.5% of its fair market value.

Senate File 153 passed out of the Senate maintaining the 9.5% tax rate and defining owner-occupied as a residential property the owner lives in for at least six months a year.

The House’s version of the bill, which the body approved by a vote of 51-9, would tax all residential properties at 8.3%.

The Senate is set to decide whether to concur with the House’s changes in the coming days.

Thursday is the final scheduled day for the Legislature’s 2025 general session. Should the Senate not concur with the lower chamber’s amendments, the bill would be set for a joint conference committee to negotiate the differences.

This story was published on March 5, 2025.