(Lander, WY) – Now in its fourth year, the Lander Chamber of Commerce hosted Legislative Preview Luncheon for 2024 once again provided attendees the opportunity to hear from local legislators, ask them questions, and get an idea of what Fremont County residents can expect from the Wyoming Legislature 2025 General Session, which begins on January 14 in Cheyenne.
Legislators present for this year’s Preview Luncheon included Senator Cale Case (Senate District 25), Senator Tim Salazar (Senate District 26), Representative Lloyd Larsen (House District 54), Representative John Winter (House District 28), and Representative Pepper Ottman (House District 34).
Lander Chamber Executive Director and Luncheon MC Owen Sweeney noted that Representative-Elects Ivan Posey (House District 33) and Joel Guggenmos (House District 55) were unable to attend the Luncheon due to their new member orientation commitments in Cheyenne on the same day.
Sweeney also noted that Ed Cooper (Senate District 20) had a committee meeting that same day, and was also unable to attend.
After thanking the sponsors and organizers of the Luncheon, Sweeney also recognized local high school students from Lander Valley High School and Riverton High School, who were in attendence as well.
“One of my passions is making our young folks engage with their local and county and state legislators,” Sweeney commented. “So thank you all for being here. I think you’re going to learn a lot, and not to put you on the spot, (but) for the last couple of years it’s been the students who have asked the best questions.”
Sweeney then opened the mic to each of the Legislators in attendance, and Senator Case was the first to speak.
“I just think about how our county is so varied and how representing our county legislature is a really challenging thing to happen,” Senator Case commented.
“Fremont County is more different than any other place. It’s more red and it’s more blue and it’s more Native and it’s more white and it’s more government and it’s more private sector. That’s a big challenge. And there’s no one answer that’s going to fit that. I hope you’re not looking for one answer out of the legislature. It’s just not that easy.”
Senator Case shared that many people suggest “cuts,” but that it “doesn’t quite work that way,” and advised that folks should avoid “sloganeering” and “just going along” with whatever groups they follow.
Senator Case added that he will be Chairing the Corporations Committee, which he says “looks like it’s going to be a committee sharing arrangement between folks on the far right and kind of folks in the middle,” commenting that he thinks that arrangement is “healthy for Wyoming because that’s what we are and that’s what Fremont county is.”
Senator Salazar, who was also just appointed Vice President of the Senate, spoke next.
Senator Salazar shared an anecdote about his campaigning this summer during the lead-up to the 2024 Election, where an individual said that they don’t vote because their vote “doesn’t matter,” and that “nothing changes.”
“I said it does matter, and it certainly matters when issues pertain to you specifically and how it will affect your life,” Senator Salazar recollected. “I gave it 10 minutes. I couldn’t convert him. I could not get him to come out and vote for anyone.”
“But my point is that I’m so glad that you all are here today because your voice does count, your opinion does count. I truly believe elected officials do listen.”
Senator Salazar added that “personnel changes” and “turnover” in the House and Senate will be “interesting” as we approach 2025 and beyond.
Representative Larsen was next to address the crowd, and stated that the “biggest challenge going into this session” will be the lack of senior Representatives in the House.
“We have 62 representatives, and regardless of what political party they belong to or what their political philosophy is, we will only have eight of us who have four years of legislative experience or more,” Representative Larsen commented. “Of the remaining 54, almost half of them, will be new to the legislative process this year. So even if we were all family and we all got along, it would be a challenge. There’s such a learning curve and there’s such a process that goes into having a successful legislative session and having bills crafted and drafted in the appropriate way. It will be an interesting session. I look forward to it.”
Representative Larsen then commented on the work he has done with the Mental Health Task Force, and what the State’s “role” is when addressing the mental health issues in Wyoming.
“What we’ve been trying to do is establish policy and determine what is the state’s role in providing mental health services to the citizens of the state before we just start throwing money at it, getting other entities involved without having their direction,” Represetnative Larsen said.
He also added that there is a “gap” in mental health care for adolescents with behavioral challenges, whom the parents and schools “have a hard time with.”
“Our system of providing help for those young people is through contracts out to outside individuals. But sometimes, these adolescents have behavioral challenges that are even too complex that they can’t take them for insurance reasons and facility reasons. So we have this gap there where there’s no place for them to go other than maybe a 13-year-old kid sent to a county jail until services are provided. We need to eliminate that. The state does have a role and we’re working on a pilot program.”
“The other thing that we’ve worked really hard on that I think is important is diverting people who have mental health challenges away from the jail scenario,” Representative Larsen continued. “They committed a misdemeanor and it’s attributed to mental health challenges. What good is sitting in county jail going to be? And if they elect to get those services, then maybe those charges can be dropped.”
Representative Winter, whose district covers a portion of Shoshoni, was the next to take the mic.
“I belong to the Ag (House Agriculture, State and Public Lands and Water Resources) and the TRW (Travel, Recreation, Wildlife and Cultural Resources) committees, as well as the (Select Federal) Natural Resource Management Committee,” Representaitve Winter informed.
“I’m lucky I have been able to be on those committees because that’s probably about the only thing I really know about, is natural resources. It’s always been my desire to make Wyoming the best it can be. In order to do that we’ve got to promote that all we can and protect it.”
Representative Winter then discussed the issues of federal funding.
“This comes up every year and I just have a real hard time with that. It seems like every time we get federal money we use it and then all of a sudden it comes back to the state to be responsible for funding everything. So hopefully we can get rid of a lot of that dependency.”
Representative Winter also pointed out his concerns about the BLM”s Rock Springs Resource Management Plan and the Buffalo Resource Management Plan, which he said are the “complete opposite of what the state of Wyoming has got to be working towards.”
“Both of these plans are trying to get rid of our natural resources in favor of green energy. And I cannot abide with that.”
Representative Ottman, who is now serving in her third term, closed out the opening intros for the Legislators.
Representative Ottman commented on the “diverse” district she represents, which includes communities comprised of less than 1,000 people with median incomes of less than $60,000.
“(These are) the people that I represent, and so this is why I make a lot of the decisions that I make,” Representative Ottman shared.
Representative Ottman then cited some of the interim topics of note that she was involved with, including the continuation of the electric utility study, the continuation of Wyoming Telecommunications Act study, housing policies, business fraud and LLC reform, insurance and agency updates, executive orders and the Wyoming Administration Procedures Act.
“Bill drafts have been made on all of these things,” Representative Ottman explained.
Representative Ottman also stated her support of concerns addressed by the Governor and the Superintendent of Public Instruction, about smartphone usage among students.
“I’m sure a lot of you young people may be familiar with that and the mounting evidence of declines in academic performance and increase in classroom disruptions. More concerning is the apparent connection between cellphone and social media usage and rising mental health challenges. There’s increases in anxiety, depression, eating disorders and even suicide attempts among students. It is often the choice that students use in bullying and harassment incidents. This increase is phenomenal.”
“It’s going to take people at the local levels, the superintendents, the school boards, and the principals and the teachers to put these things into consideration and into effect,” Representative Ottman concluded.
“I attended WYDOT meetings on the state of Fremont county roads, and also I decided to go and attend the Fort Washakie transportation meeting as well,” Representative Otman also shared.
“The necessity of the state, county and Tribal transportation departments are paramount. They’re not talking together. There’s money here, money there, money here, money there. But they can’t get together. And some of that is because, some of them don’t show up or some of them ‘this’ or some of them ‘that.’ We’re all adults, so let’s get it together and get these things done because there’s a lot of need.”
Representative Ottman then stated her “guiding principles” as an elected official.
“My guiding principles are based on my personal belief as a Bible believing Christian. The second is adherence to the Constitution of these United States for the promotion of life, all life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and property. The Wyoming Constitution as a sovereign state, not a vassal. And the Wyoming Republican Party platform and the 23 principles set forth in it by the Republicans of Wyoming.”
Representative Ottman closed out with the following.
“I will carry bills on medical conscience, conservation easement/amendments, election integrity and two others that I’m working on. I will support property tax reform, including the commercial properties, reduction of regulatory overreach, management audit, energy policy for more affordable and sustainable production in our state and rejection of NAC Natural Asset Company bills.”
The second portion of the Luncheon was open to questions from the audience. The questions and responses are transcribed in full below.
Q: So we recently here in the state of Wyoming passed a constitutional amendment that will allow property taxes to be assessed in different ways. And what I’d like to ask our legislators, are what ideas have been floating around about how that constitutional amendment will impact what policies you may be considering in the upcoming legislative session?”
A: Senator Case – “Well, it’s kind of interesting. We had two issues regarding property taxes the legislature passed into effect last year that actually could affect property taxes in the next assessment cycle, and that’s the one that has the caps for long-term residents and other requirements for qualification.”
“The constitutional amendment, what it did was to take and create another tier for residential property taxes. It allows the legislature to establish residential properties as a separate tier. The rest of the qualifications in the constitution remain in effect and that is that there has to be a range between the lowest tier and the highest tier. And that’s kind of an important thing.”
“It’s 400 basis points between the lowest and the highest. Industrial properties (are taxed at) 11.5% and residential is 9.5%. So that piece is 9.5% of the total market value. Now we’re going to be able to split that out and take it down one more step or maybe two more steps to be within a range of 400 basis points between the 10.5%. So that’s going to allow property taxes to get down considerably.”
“There’s a hitch with this. It’s not a done deal. And the not a done deal is, there will be a legal challenge to the bill, to the constitutional amendment and it will be a procedural challenge based on the fact that the legislature didn’t pass the same bill that it started with on this issue. So watch this. It might not happen. There will also be a legal challenge with respect to the bill that was passed last year with respect to the caps and that is going to be on the basis of the fact that it’s unfair to have long-term residents pay a different level of taxation than new residents and that that doesn’t meet the constitutional test of equal taxes.”
“What could the legislature do though? They could reduce from 9.5% down to 7.5% for residential if they just want to go that far. More than 20% reduction in property taxes all around the state. It’s a big deal. Not a dime of that goes to state government. Property taxes fund local government. They fund mostly your schools, but your counties, your fire districts, your cities and towns. It’s a local resource. There’s no guarantee that the legislature, if they were to lower the property tax rate, would make up the funds to local governments. When you look at the fact that long term mineral prices, if we continue to incline in coal and other minerals, we might be in trouble, I don’t know. But with a new administration, maybe that will be different. But there’s a lot to watch here.”
Q: This is for Representative (Larsen). I represent Community Entry Services here in Lander and Riverton. Can you tell us more about the funding for medical services for disabled adults? What does it look like? What is the legislative environment looking like for this coming year?
A: Representative Larsen – “So this is a supplemental budget year, so we would amend or supplement the standard budget we passed last year. And for the comprehensive services for entities such as Community Entry Services or those who provide services for the developmentally disabled, there isn’t an increase and there isn’t a decrease to the funding that they got. So it stays flat. However, as Senator Case pointed out, there’s another part to this story. When we had the American Rescue Plan act, the ARPA funds that were available, we were going through the rebasing at that time for those community services on the mental health side and had not brought the funding up to the level it needed to be.”
“There were some ARPA funds that were available and we, the legislature, funded $15 million one time to these services so that they could bring their, particularly their direct service employees up to a higher rate to really employee compensation. Those were set to run out in the spring of 2025. They will run out and the folks like Community Energy Services and others will feel the impact because those one-time funds will go away. The question will be what will be the appetite for the legislature to try to replace those maybe in a supplemental budget or to at least look at them over the interim to be put back into their standard budget. We don’t, on the House side, don’t have our committee assignment or at least I don’t have my committee assignment yet. So I’m not able to answer just what the approach will be moving forward, but that’s where it is at this point.”
Q: (Student Question) Representative Larson, you mentioned mental health. Do you think that a lack of access to affordable health care or Medicare heavily contributes to mental health of older folks, the most at risk for suicide?
A: Representative Larsen – “We currently have community mental health providers, which was established and we’ve done this behavioral health redesign to ensure that we try to get more of these dollars to services that will directly impact priority populations, including families and individuals who are at risk of suicide.
“Now, her question was, what about affordable healthcare? Does that the lack of affordable healthcare, does that impact the stress on a family and contribute to suicide? I think the short answer is yes, the lack of that is. What Wyoming would have to do to correct that is expand Medicaid, which has been a scorpion at the foot of your bed for many years.”
“What is really important to understand, and I think I’ve said this in previous years, is that when the Affordable Healthcare act was passed, how it looked at that juncture and how it looks now is vastly different. And the intent of the Affordable Health Care act, and we call it a number of different things, was to say people that can afford insurance buy it, people that have insurance, their employer, good for you. People that can’t afford insurance, but you’re above 200% federal poverty level, we’re going to create this exchange and use some federal dollars to subsidize your insurance to where it’s more affordable.”
“And then those who are down in this lower poverty range, we’re going to expand Medicaid to where your family is covered in that. Now, it’s important to remember that children are already covered there and people over a certain age. But people got really concerned about this expansion of Medicare. I was one of those. I voted against that the first couple of years. The reason I was scared, Representative Winters mentioned this, is that we get concerned about the strings that are attached. They said they would pay 100% of that for four years, then it would ratchet down to 90% of the Medicaid expansion.”
“I was concerned that what if they stick us with the whole thing? So we kind of held off on that. Then what happened, the federal government start(ed) to loosen up on what you can do. For example, Arkansas, instead of just expanding Medicaid, they took those dollars and created a waiver and bought everybody a health insurance policy to accomplish that. So they started being more credible. But then two really important things happened. There (were) challenges in the Supreme Court. Senator Case noted that on our constitutional amendments. But in the U.S. Supreme Court, they determined that the Medicaid expansion was a tax, it was allowable. But then on the second thing, they ruled on a separate case as they said that the federal government could not require state. So they could not require Wyoming to expand Medicaid. So what that does is it said that the Affordable Care act was legal. It moves forward.”
“But then what we have been inside that mechanism is we have this population that makes zero, no dollars up to 130% of poverty, so really, the poorest of the poor. Most of these are single mothers or older single women. Because we haven’t expanded Medicaid, they can’t afford to get health insurance and they make too little to get any help. So we have them trapped in this little square. They can’t afford it. They can’t get help because they don’t make enough money. In Wyoming, that’s about 19,000 people. There’s concern that if we fund that it cost $10 million a year, then if we fund that, it would expand to maybe 30,000. Our Department of Health has looked at that. It’s mathematically not possible to go to that level. They think that it could maybe go up to 23, to maybe remotely 25,000, and that’s where the 10 million a year comes from. I think that we could approach those and say if strings are attached in Medicaid, expansion goes away.”
“When I talk to people campaigning, (and they say) “No. We should never do this,” my question back to them is, do they not deserve access to health care?
“They say ‘Well, of course, but not Medicaid.’ So then what’s the answer? They say, ‘Well, just put them on the state’s health insurance policy like our state employees.’ That’s a good idea. I like that. It only costs about 10 million more than it’s been in Medicaid. Does that contribute to the stress of those people who can’t get insurance? Yes. Does it contribute to suicide? I don’t know. Could it? From what I learned being a part of the mental health task force? Absolutely it could. I think that that’s a challenge that me and my colleagues will have to deal with.”
Q: Over the last three years, there’s been increase in legislation that takes away from local control. The legislature is eating away the duties of county commissioners, school board members, city council members, other locally elected officials. My question is, is that trend (going to) continue and why does the legislature think that’s important to take over those local local duties?
A: Senator Salazar: “The short answer is I think it will continue. Do I agree with it? I don’t know. I think we’re going to look at individual bills to see what’s occurring. I will tell you, last week I received a call from a legislator saying would you be willing to sponsor a bill that puts political affiliation to school board elections? I had a question. Why would we do that? Why would we think of doing that? So I think the trend, from what I see is, given that anecdotal example, is yes. It puts into question the whole concept of government into our lives. So, yes, the answer is I believe it will. I think there will be more legislation.”
“I think that there are some of us in the legislature who want to bring power back to the local level, but it requires the majority of the legislature to do that. The sweeping concept of bringing local control back to the folks at home is a good one. The hiccup is when certain legislators see bills, that say that there’s a problem in this area, we need to intervene, I don’t think they add up the overall concept of all the bills that come forward. If you look at the picture overall, then you do see what you see, which is government intruding in people’s lives more and more. The question is, with the new legislature, where are you going to stand on keeping the power at the lowest level? That is a Republican concept. I’m a member of the Republican Party. We have always fought to try and keep power locally rather than having it dictated at the state or federal level.”
“I know how I feel about the federal government interfering with our energy sector. I know how I feel about the federal government interfering in how we use our lands in Wyoming. So unfortunately, I think we’ll see more of that. But the good news is that state legislators like myself and others don’t have to vote for those bills. We can say no. We can vote no. I don’t want Cheyenne to dictate on many of these issues to our local folks. The local, community standards, local standards is best. A one size fits all, in my opinion, doesn’t work. My community of Riverton is different than the community in Cody or Laramie or Cheyenne.”
Q: (Student Question) Representative Larson, what plans for aid on mental awareness do you have for the people, for students going to schools and for people affected with mental health issues?
A: Representative Larsen – “The mental health task force has been dealing with this for over a couple of years. The first question we have for our administrators is to answer their question and say, what’s the role of the school district for providing mental health services to you? I mentioned earlier today that we have special education. But what we’re seeing across school districts across the state is that, you know, just kids are in an environment and sometimes behaviors are making themselves manifest in school that reflect some of the challenges that they’re having. Do we want to have each school district and each school be a mental health provider? And the answer to that is no, we don’t. We want them to be educated. So then what should they do? If a student has a mental health challenge or behavior that’s challenging?”
“The policy that we recommended is to say that schools should be able to screen or identify someone who has a mental health challenge. You can do that in a variety of ways. A couple of programs that are out there in a pilot program that Lander used in the last couple years, the Project Aware program. How do you stabilize that situation, that student that maybe manifests? How do we stabilize them to receive appropriate services? The easiest thing you could do there is put more counselors in the school, maybe, or maybe we just get more counselors in the community. The problem with that is there aren’t any. There’s not enough counsellors, psychologists nationwide to fill those slots. What we recommended was rejected by the Joint Education Committee (implementing the AWARE program and providing funding.) That was rejected so I’m running that as a personal bill. That would put into place the structure that would allow the faculty, the students and local mental health providers to work together to provide those services to the students that need them. If that passes and if that’s implemented, will that be the end of discussion? No, I think we’ll have to, as we learn more, how to add more onto it.”
Q: I’m a nurse at Wyoming Life Resource Center. To kind of piggyback off of what was just mentioned, is the legislation looking at anything to help attract or retain any healthcare workers or providers, say nurses, practitioners, anything like that? I know a lot of the places around here we have contract nurses and contracts DNAs and things like that, but as soon as the money runs out, they leave or they look for the next thing.
A: Senator Case – “This is a huge issue all across the state, it really is. We can’t find workers for any major efforts, we can’t find teachers, we can’t find nurses, we can’t find people to work in hotels. This is a giant issue. It’s going to get worse. It’s going to get worse as the funding gets more difficult, it will get worse as our population ages. It will get worse as more and more young people leave the state.”
“This is like the biggest issue facing Wyoming in the future. How are we going to be a viable, industrious state (that) attract(s) people, to have people work at jobs and go forward. The Life Resource Center, very dear to my heart. The expansion up there, we never realized, I think, how hard it is to fill those positions and keep them built and what it takes. This nursing trap where we get, in order to make sure we have coverage, we hire nurses that cost us three, four, five times more. They’re here on a contract temporary basis. All that does is make the nurses that are there that are on salary angry. ‘You’re paying them and they’re just here temporarily?’ Then they go be contract nurses somewhere else. So it is a huge catch-22.”
“We need more resources, not less. In all of these jobs and the government services, we really do, we have to pay competitive wages. We when we have to pay more for contract people, we’re cutting our own throats, we’re spending more money. We’re not getting continuous care. We have to make the Life Resource Center a better place to work. We need a daycare facility. We need to attract people that are looking for work. We need better wages. And you know what? We might need permanent long-term people to come help us, perhaps from other countries. Licensed healthcare professionals can get licensed here, can become part of our communities, and can live here. They’re not contract people. They’re going to live with us in our community. We’re going to grow together. We need lots of solutions like that.”
“I’m telling you. The Republicans are in for now. The rest of the world doesn’t want fossil fuels. Maybe we’re going to get some more good years out of it. But our population is aging. We’re trying to cut the heck out of our tax structure where our future industries may not have long-term viability to the extent that they do now. We’ve got these important people and institutions to take care of. So we need to make good decisions.”
A #2: Representative Larsen – “We’ve got hospitals, we’ve got Community Entry Services that (are) in competition with direct care providers. When we give direct care providers at our state facilities an increase in salary, it puts pressure on them and their people to leave. Whatever we do, private or public, it has an impact statewide. But what are some of the things that they’re doing? The Department of Health has been pretty innovative and working to increase hours for nurses and direct care providers. But Senator Case is exactly correct. It’s really sheer numbers. We don’t have enough workers in healthcare fields as well as others. It’s a challenge we’ve been working on for a while and we’ll continue to do so.”
A #3: Representative Ottman – “When we look at our energy, one of the things that we’re finding here in Wyoming is because some of the companies that we deal with deal with other states that have different views on things than we do. They also don’t have the natural resources that we have and don’t see them as a valuable source of what supports not only our state, our income and our people, but also the rest of the country. So when we look at why don’t we have healthcare, why don’t we have workers? Well, one of them is that we’re having less and less children. Over the last 40 years we’ve had a lot less children. We are not multiplying the way we need to. Our population growth is zero. The second thing that we need to look at is that a lot of people are working at home now since COVID. Lots of people are working from home. They’re doing things on the computer, they’re doing things on their phone. They don’t need to go to an office and they don’t need to go out into the workforce into healthcare, which is a hard field. Teaching is hard, oil field’s hard, construction is hard. People are finding that they can stay home in their sweats, they don’t need to go out. So that’s another issue.”
“The third issue is who we make MOU’s with. We have a multi-state agreement. It’s wonderful. I mean it provides things that this University in Wyoming probably could not meet. But it also comes with the mindset as does Oregon and Washington with wanting everything green in our energy sector. What it also comes with is that people need to have vaccinations. We don’t have that here and we believe, we believe in medical conscience. I talked with the director at the nursing school and I asked her, I have all these kids that are calling me and saying I dropped out of the nursing program. Why? Why did you do that? Well because it goes against my beliefs that I’m not doing that. So then it’s like, well the nursing homes, we have to protect those people. Is it required? So there’s lots of issues and I would just encourage us with mental health, with the energy industry, with the lack of employees. Look at the source of the problem. Money’s not going to do it. Teachers are saying I just can’t, I can’t handle these children anymore. The behaviors and the things that go on and the things that are allowed are too much at any price. So I would just encourage us all rather than thinking there’s a one stop shop or a one money fixer, I would encourage us (to ask) what is the source of the problem?”
Q: I wanted to expand on that because I kind of realized that a majority of the problem is that the young people are leaving the state. Well, why are they leaving the state? It’s because there’s nothing to do here. We need public transportation, maybe a rec center. There’s not a ton to do around here that I know of. Also, I’m a CNA and for the hours that I do, for the work that I do, a lot of the portion of it is the wages. It’s the wages are so low for healthcare workers. I would just like you guys to maybe take that into account.
A: Representative Otman – “Well, CNAs do incredible work. Thank you. And I just wanted to add as far as recreation and things like that. When we first moved here in Riverton, there was a bowling alley, there was a pool hall, there was all kinds of things. Nobody went, so they stopped. So when I hear people say things about these rec centers, well, start one.”
Q: (Student Question) – “As a student, having quality teachers is really important. How as a state do we attract more licensed teachers to fill positions within schools?”
A: Representative Larsen – “How do we attract more licensed teachers? Pay them more, is the simple answer currently. So just to set the pace, what we fund K12 education, not counting the construction of any schools, just academics is more than our whole budget for running the state government.”
“Education is expensive. There’s some lawsuits that drive that. That funding comes from the state and it comes from property taxes. So a lot of conversation today on property taxes that comes to local government and comes to schools. There was a time when I came into the legislature, where our funding model for education, you would have an evidence-based model, which means you have smart people who can tell us how much we should be paying people. And then there’s a legislator which means those of us back here that say that this is what we’ll pay.”
“When we came out of the late 90s into the 2000s when revenue was really high and the legislative model for funding education was higher than the evidence based model, so we were in good shape. That gap over the years has closed and there were some people that said we’re paying too much for education, we should just have the legislative model and the evidence-based model be the same.”
“So in my time that kind of happened and we put it along there, but then they crossed.So the legislative model is now less than the evidence based model, which is why last year we passed a pretty significant external cost adjustment because we’re out of compliance arguably with Supreme Court ruling that says we need to pay the evidence based model. 85% of those costs are people, meaning teachers, administrators, so we have to be able to pay people more than what we currently are because we can’t recruit them.
“When I first went to the legislature, if there was a vacancy at Lander Valley Fremont school district number one, there would be 2530 applications for that position, and now there may be 3, 4, 5. There’s something that’s driving that in most of those (instances). I think that the bottom line really is funding. Why do people leave the state? Not only is there sometimes not things to do, but there’s higher wages someplace else.”
Q: (Student Question) “As a student who is involved in lots of out of school and extracurricular activities, we run into a lot of school funding issues. I was wondering should the property tax be reduced? What is the plan for schools and local government funding? Additionally, how would it affect teachers salary and ultimately the lack of qualified teachers?”
A: Senator Case – “We do not have a plan. There is no plan for contingency for the state to make up local resources. This is going to hit some counties different than others. Because if you’re a heavy mineral county, you get most of your property taxes from minerals, so the reduction in the residential taxes may not matter much. That may not be a very big hit, but for other counties, it’s a pretty big deal. For Fremont county, about half of our wealth is non-mineral. Roughly it changes by year. In Teton County it’s going to get the bulk of the tax break and they can afford it. They have no minerals, it’s all going to come out of residential. But I’m sure they have enough money to pay teachers and other things, but nobody else does, and there is no plan. There absolutely is no plan. The legislature will have to decide when they figure out the impacts, if they’re going to want to put some money towards this. But at the same time that those resources may not be available at state, there’s no guarantee. So there absolutely is no plan.”