‘Massive confusion’: Lawmakers discuss impacts of evolving property tax relief measures

(Gillette, WY) – Less than half of the Wyoming homeowners who are eligible for the state’s 25 percent residential property tax exemption will actually receive that relief this year – in large part due to a change in the way the program is administered, lawmakers heard this month.

“There was massive confusion with the voters,” Wyoming Rep. Tony Locke, R-Casper, said during a legislative Revenue Committee meeting last week. “A lot of people who potentially qualified for that … did not sign up.”

When the property tax exemption initially became available last year, all residential properties were eligible for the program, so homeowners didn’t have to apply for the relief, state staffers explained during the meeting. 

For 2026, however, state lawmakers decided the exemption would only cover primary residences that were owner-occupied for at least eight months of the year – meaning eligible homeowners needed to fill out an application in order to receive the relief.

Some of those property owners were able to apply for the 50 percent tax exemption for long-term homeowners instead, state staffers noted last week – but many were simply unaware of the administrative change impacting the 25 percent exemption program and therefore missed the chance to participate.

“Between the 25 percent and long-term homeowners … probably 65 to 70 percent of eligible applicants received one or the other,” Department of Revenue Property Tax Division Administrator Ken Guille estimated during the meeting. 

In other words, Locke said, 30 percent of eligible property owners won’t receive any tax exemptions this year – and Converse County Assessor Dixie Huxtable said she and her counterparts throughout the state “are hearing a lot about it.”

“We’ve had quite a few individuals in each county come forward,” Huxtable said. “There was a lot of confusion (and) a lot of frustration.”

Ballot initiative

Asked what the state could do to reduce that confusion, Huxtable suggested holding off on making any more substantial changes to Wyoming’s property tax administration processes in the coming year.

“Anything that we do to change that now would (cause) more confusion,” she said. “I just would like to kind of let us do status quo and see how we get through another year.”

It will be up to the voters to decide whether at least one more change will occur this year, however, given that a property tax initiative is scheduled to appear on local ballots proposing a 50 percent exemption for homeowners who have lived in Wyoming for at least one year and who have resided at the property in question for at least six months.

The ballot initiative is contributing to the confusion “that’s already out there,” Huxtable noted, because people aren’t sure how the proposal will impact the other property tax exemptions that the legislature has already implemented.

For example, she said, as the law currently stands, if the ballot initiative passes this fall, homeowners in 2027 could be eligible for both the proposed 50 percent exemption and the 25 percent property tax exemption that already exists.

“We need to clean that up,” Wyoming Sen. Troy McKeown, R-Gillette, said, asking state staffers to draft legislation that would address that issue if the ballot initiative passes.

The conversation prompted Wyoming Sen. Cale Case, R-Lander, to wonder “how prepared we are going forward.”

“Do the people understand what they’ll be voting for in November?” he asked. “Do they understand whether there’s implications with previous bills that we’d passed, or previous applications that they’ve done? And are we doing a fair job of telling the people what the implications are for what they would be voting on – either their personal implications or the implications for tax receipts across the state? … 

“We’re coming into an election where people are going to have a major decision to make, and are we setting up to be fair – to inform them (of) both the positive and negative implications of that decision?”

Based on her interactions with the public, Huxtable said voters remain “very confused” about “what the initiative means” – and she isn’t able to offer them much clarity, given that the ballot language is still being finalized and “we don’t know how (the initiative) is going to affect the 25 percent” exemption that’s already in place.

“There are so many moving parts,” Huxtable said. “It is hard for us to explain.”

It’s also difficult to know the impact the ballot initiative would have on local budgets, Case said, noting that estimates about the proposal’s fiscal impacts haven’t been “granular.”

Those estimates also don’t appear to be “accurate,” Wyoming Rep. Liz Storer, D-Jackson, said, given that they are either several years old or are based on legislative circumstances that have since changed.

The initiative was initially estimated to have a $137 million impact statewide, according to the DOR, but that projection was based on data from 2022.

“I might suggest maybe we should have some conversations with the Secretary of State so we could get closer to an actual number (and) make sure that the public understands what the fiscal impact is,” Storer said. 

She was especially concerned about the effect the ballot initiative would have on public school funding in Wyoming, which the state is legally obligated to cover.

“(We) know it’s going to impact revenues for the schools,” Storer said. “Is there a plan to make that up? And how would we make that up?”

In response, Wyoming Sen. Bob Ide, R-Casper, suggested that, instead of finding ways to backfill the loss, “we need to learn how (to) spend less.”

“I appreciate your fiscal conservativeness,” Storer replied. “But I also am just really kind of wondering, if we’re looking at … cuts to the School Foundation Program, are you suggesting that we just not spend that money?”

Ide countered with a question of his own: “Why (do) we spend 100 percent more per pupil for education than our neighbors to the west of us?”

Storer guessed that the answer had something to do with the fact that, in Wyoming, “our small schools cost a lot, and our transportation costs a lot, (and) in my community paying teachers costs a lot, because our housing is so expensive.”

Regardless, she said, “we still support having a great education system in the state, and it does cost a lot in a place like Wyoming.”

Case agreed that “we’re going to have to find money for education” if the ballot initiative is approved, and he echoed Storer’s question about the potential source of that funding.

“Where will that come from?” he asked.

Local governments are “going to have to find money” to cover the loss in property tax revenue that would result from the ballot initiative passing, too, Case added, and “they need to know the implications (of the initiative) so they can plan.”

“We’re not doing a very good job of helping them to plan,” he said.