(Shoshoni, WY) – After more than a decade of attempts, the Wyoming Legislature has passed a bill authorizing the deposit of public money in local credit unions.
Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon signed Senate File 143 – now Senate Enrolled Act 28 – into law last week.
The change will allow the Town of Shoshoni to utilize its local credit union – instead of driving 20 miles each way to deposit money in a bank in Riverton.
Shoshoni Mayor Joel Highsmith testified in favor of SF 143 during two legislative committee meetings this session, explaining that it would “benefit us a lot to be able (to) deposit our municipal funds in the credit union” in town.
Brian Rorhbacher, President and CEO of the local Atlantic City Federal Credit Union, with offices in Lander, Riverton, and Shoshoni, said the legislation will also allow institutions like his to contribute to local government projects like the Table Mountain assisted living effort in Lander.
When that project began, Rorhbacher said the ACFCU was one of the local financial institutions that helped pay for the initial feasibility study – but once the project progressed “to the next step, we were denied to be able to participate in the funding of it,” due to the state law.
“I’m glad that Mayor Highsmith (was) able to share some of his concerns with the community of Shoshoni,” Rorhbacher said. “But as you can see, there are many consequences for the communities in Wyoming by not allowing public funds to be accessible to our credit unions.”
Wyoming Sen. Tara Nethercott, R-Cheyenne, relayed Highsmith’s and Rorhbacher’s testimony to her fellow senators when she introduced SF 143 on the Senate Floor last month, adding another anecdote from “the heart of the state where I’m originally from” – referring to Fremont County – about an “ag producers credit union” that “could not administer state farm loan funds for an irrigation project due to a restriction on those state funds.”
She later presented SF 143 to the House Minerals, Business and Economic Development Committee, which also heard testimony from Wyoming Rep. Lloyd Larsen, R-Lander, about his involvement in the decade-long effort to pass legislation allowing public money to be deposited in local credit unions.
That effort “always (received) substantial pushback,” Larsen said, so in 2015, he asked the Wyoming Attorney General to draft an opinion on the matter.
In that opinion, the Attorney General noted that the Wyoming Constitution only requires public funds to be deposited in banks “where practicable,” Larsen told the committee this month, explaining that, “in the early territorial days” when the Constitution was written, not every community had a bank.
Further, he said, the Legislature passed a law in 1977 allowing public money to be deposited with savings and loans companies, which, like credit unions, “are not banks.”
“This bill … would allow credit unions to do the same thing,” Larsen said.
He offered a similar explanation when SF 143 was introduced on the House Floor last month, along with another recounting of the issues the Town of Shoshoni faces due to its current inability to utilize its local ACFCU.
“They’re forced to take their cash and deposits 20 miles to (Riverton) for deposit on a regular basis,” Larsen said. “(And) ideally you always send two people, right? But then, who wants to send two people for a 40 mile joyride to make a deposit in a bank when right down the street they can make the deposit in a credit union?”
SF 143 is set to take effect July 1, at which point the Town of Shoshoni will be able to start making deposits at the local ACFCU “if we so desire,” Highsmith said during a Shoshoni Town Council meeting last week.
For more information, call the Town of Shoshoni at (307) 876-2515.