Paid for by Forward Fremont County PAC
A lot of information, including misinformation and misunderstandings, has been floating around about the 1/2 Percent Economic Growth Initiative on the November ballot. We got together with the team at Forward Fremont County to ask about some of these issues. Here is what we learned:
Q: Some people claim the 1/2 Percent Economic Growth Initiative is taxation without representation. Is that true?
A: That’s funny. It’s just the opposite, the 1/2 Precent is the ultimate in representative taxpayer supported funding. That’s because it’s totally under local control with many opportunities for citizen input. Think of it, the initiative was first put on the ballot because more than 1,000 local citizens signed the petitions. This is normally a big task but it was giant during Covid. Then the initiative went on the ballot with language that allocated 30% of funds collected would be dedicated to transportation (air and ground) and 70% to go to economic development projects at the choosing of local communities; voters approved the initiative. Then our elected municipal leaders worked collaboratively through FCAG (sanction by Wyoming statute 16-1-101) to develop a process that included developing local committees to vet applications for funding. These include Edge (Riverton), Lift (Lander) and Move (county), with committee members – your neighbors, friends and family – assigned by your local elected municipal governments. After they vet, question and fully discuss the applications, the committees make recommendations to our local city councils (people you elected to represent you) who make the final decisions on community awards (that 70% local discretion bucket). Smaller communities skip the committee step and do it all with their councils. In each of those steps, as well as when the municipalities collaborate, the public has an opportunity to attend meetings and comment. Citizens don’t have to wait four years to voice concerns, they can do it every month. Most importantly, I think, is that the local communities know best what their towns need to grow and develop in a way that works for them. It is true that citizens in one town don’t get to tell another how to spend their funds. If you live in Riverton, you may not agree with how Lander or Shoshoni or Dubois spent their funds. I think that’s where much of this frustration comes from, but Wyoming has always been a collection of very independent communities. I wouldn’t want it any other way.
Q: What about claims that the air service group is using funds as a savings account?
A: Well, it’s true that the funds for air service have to be established in advance of the spending. For example, SkyWest offered us an opportunity to add a mid-day flight to the United-route service which has made travel much more convenient, and helped stop travel “leakage” going to out-of-area airports. But it would increase the MRG (minimum revenue guarantee, of which the state pays 60%) required for those flights, particularly in the beginning. Keep in mind, tickets are sold well in advance of travel. Funding needed to be in place prior to the flights, and prior to SkyWest providing pilots and crews, planes, gates in Denver, etc., to offer those tickets for sale. Also keep in mind that, before the 1/2 percent funding was established, local municipalities – Lander, the County and Riverton – provided the local portion of the MRG funding, but they had been tapped out and couldn’t do so in the future, that’s when the initiative was put on the ballot. Without securing the monies in advance, there would be a possibility that the City of Riverton, and its taxpayers, would be left holding the bag if monies ran dry, and that would be unfair. As a result, if the initiative is not renewed, we will only be able to maintain commercial air service for as long as there are funds sufficient to guarantee it. Without the tax, and without the commitment of additional funds from local governments and the community, we might be able to fly for another year. That year’s notice would give businesses that rely on air transportation, individuals that enjoy it, and municipalities that depend on it, some time to develop alternative solutions. Sadly, there is not enough funding to get us through to the next election cycle in two years. And we know if we close down for one year, we lose TSA, and, based on Worland’s experience, we would not likely get it back. So renewing this initiative is critical to commercial air service.
Q: There’s an argument that we shouldn’t fund private businesses. What makes the community award spending ok?
A: First, growing an economy is not about growing government or growing social services per se (although they may feel benefits), it’s about growing business. Businesses provide jobs and revenues, and with new jobs, comes wage growth that benefits nearly all of us. Ironically, it’s Wyoming businesses that pay the bulk of the taxes that private residents enjoy, primarily through the mining and energy sectors. We’re at a critical juncture. Those tax-paying businesses are in decline in Wyoming, and so are the funds they provide. Not only have we felt it with the loss of jobs, workforce and population since 2015, but we are likely to feel a greater impact as the state decreases funding to municipalities – funding that supports our schools, police and other essential services. So how do we prepare for the future that is obviously headed our way? We look for new revenue paths. That’s why I think the 1/2 percent is so important. If we make this small but smart investment now – $5 to $7 a month for each of us, the cost of a cup of coffee or a beer at the bar – we grow businesses that bring good jobs that bring people back to Fremont County, and enlarge the pool of taxpayers and consumers. We don’t ask citizens to carry more of the load, we ask for more citizens to carry it. And this is how to grow a local economy. By the way, there are lots of ways taxpayers fund private businesses already, through federal grant and loan programs, which flourished during the Trump administration to combat Covid effects, through tax incentives of various kinds, and through state loan programs. This is the similar approach, but with local control.
Q: Once a business applies for funding and is granted it, how do we know they actually do what they promised.
A: Initially, most communities were happy to put businesses on an honor system, knowing that if actual fraud or breach-of-contract occurred there could be remedies in court. But that’s not a very efficient system. Riverton had established “clawback” provisions to their program which were later employed by other communities. You can find verbiage for this on the County’s website for MOVE. These awards are made (and economic development defined) based on jobs grown or retained, and revenues brought to the communities, that are claimed in the applications.
It’s also important to know that these are not risk-free monies. If you’ve ever grown your own enterprise, or added a new product line, you know how hard, and risky this can be. The business as to come up with at least 50% of the funding for their expansion on their own or through a bank, with the local communities providing funds for up to 50% (and typically less). They have a lot of their own skin in the game, and often city councils don’t approve those applications that they don’t think have enough “skin” in it. But when those businesses take those risks, and are successful, they add to the total economy from which we all benefit. These funds don’t determine winners and losers, they determine winners and more winners.
A friend of mine recently described this part of the local community discretion funding as today’s version of the barn-raisings in Wyoming’s history. Neighbors helping neighbors succeed because it’s really good for all of us. I like that analogy.
Q: What about the funding distribution will change with this renewal?
A: That’s a great question. Nothing in the funding changes in the ballot language. It is exactly the same with 30% of funding guaranteed to fund transportation (air and ground) and 70% to fund economic development projects at the choosing of the local communities. That’s what the voters approved in the past, and what they are being asked to renew. However, your local elected municipal leaders have looked at issues that have come up, listened to citizen concerns and considered lessons learned, and have agreed to make some changes to how the community awards (the 70%) are made. They conducted a straw poll asking citizens what they wanted to support with the 1/2 percent. Respondents overwhelmingly wanted to support air service (81%) and ground transportation (81%). They also wanted to support ambulance service (72%) that was a new consideration for funding. Support of local business grants was 51.2%, but not as substantial. On top of that, with inflation, costs for transportation had grown considerably, so more was going to be needed there. Our elected officials listened to those citizen concerns and agreed between the seven recipient communities on some new distribution processes. Of the 70% community funds, each community agreed to provide 23% to air service and 7% to ground transportation (in addition to the 30% minimum set by voters), plus 20% to ambulance service, leaving a significantly smaller amount, 20%, for business development (previously the entire 70% was used to fund business). It’s really important to maintain some funding for business for those big project instances like the Riverton Hospital (or CWC Equine Center) where a small amount of local funding was needed to secure a huge amount of federal funding, bringing revenues (and jobs) to our communities that would not have been available otherwise. The hospital will bring an estimated 300 jobs to the area for construction and about 150 jobs when the hospital is fully operational. Those kinds of projects really move the needle in a big way.
Q: It’s good that our mayors listened to the citizens and adjusted the way the community awards would be made, but some say it’s too easy to change an MOU. Should we be concerned about that?
A: Our Fremont-based community leaders serve us well when they work in a coordinated and collaborative way, that just makes sense. And since the Economic Growth Initiative is still pretty “young” it’s important that they’ve had the flexibility to address issues and concerns that were not easily predicted. To add dimension to this, the municipalities (they work together through the Fremont County Association of Governments or FCAG) agreed in the original MOU for this initiative, that changes to administering the initiative could be made based on majority approval. There are seven participants, so a majority would be the votes of at least four municipalities. That in itself would indicate that changes can not be made in a fickle fashion, but there is also a very respectful culture within the FCAG group. They recognize they each have different constituencies and community needs. They discuss concerns and listen to each other. In some cases, such as the county, the municipality might be pretty split on an issue internally. In the case of the commissioners, those representing the most populated areas (two) voted differently than the other three while even those three were somewhat undecided and looking for guidance from the voters. The new MOU that would take effect with the voters’ renewal of the 1/2 Percent Initiative, passed by a vote of 5-to-2 which included both large and small communities in agreement. The fact that they addressed the critical county issue of ambulance funding was a credit to their working culture.
Q: How has the initiative benefited taxpayers thus far? And what projects did the half percent initiative fund?
A: Well to start, it funded air service and ground transportation, and that kept all businesses moving. But the community funding (the 70% bucket) did a lot more than that, supporting over 100 applications with funds. You’ll find most of them listed on the Forward Fremont County website (ForwardFremontCounty.org/about) but it’s a lot to go through. The big highlights are that about 35% of those funds supported healthcare improvements spread across the entire county and 30% supported growing the job-focused manufacturing segment. Additionally, an estimated 20% provided funding for state and regional family sports and visitor development – things like the WyoGrinder event that brought cyclists from all over the Rocky Mountain region to the county, as well as climbing, ag events and rodeo, but also youth sports like soccer and gymnastics that bring families from all over the state to our area. These events increase revenues (and tax collections) spent on lodging, gas and dining out and serve as tourism development. The smallest allocations went to small business development (8%), entrepreneurial development (5%) and “other” (2%).
A more comprehensive look at the total economic impact was reported to us by the University of Wyoming’s CBEA study. It told us that to date, every dollar of this initiative distributed through Sept. 2023, returned an estimated $3.91 in economic benefit. That’s a pretty darn good ROI. But some of the largest projects will take a bit longer to come online, so the little-longer-term projection (next 4 years) is $7.34 for those same $1 investments, netting our county $120 million in economic output (increasing our GDP) and creating 1,059 jobs. When the initiative is renewed by voters, that impact could be increased substantially.
More questions may arise for citizens, and it is not uncommon for somebody to look at an investment and assume it means something that may be incorrect. There are folks that can help answer those questions at Forward Fremont County, and through your town’s economic development committees. Feel free to reach out with questions, or ask FFPAC to provide a presentation or chat to any club or group you belong to.
And please, Vote “YES” for the 1/2 Percent Economic Growth Initiative on November’s ballot, ask your friends and family to vote yes, and feel free to share this post.
Paid for by Forward Fremont County PAC
County 10 does not endorse any political candidate and strictly separates editorial/news coverage from advertising as it relates to a political campaign and election coverage.