‘We need to prepare our departments’: Fremont County bracing for potential ‘serious reductions in spending’ this year

(Lander, WY) – Fremont County government is preparing for a potential $7 million budget reduction as property tax relief measures and declining mineral revenues threaten to drop the county’s assessed value from $851 million to between $625-650 million.

Those projections are “vague” for now because the Wyoming Legislature is still considering multiple bill drafts that could have an impact on county revenues, Commissioner Larry Allen explained during a Fremont County Commission meeting this week. 

“There are so many bills out there,” he said. “We don’t know the ramifications of all of them, (and) we don’t know if they’re going to pass.”

Regardless, Allen said “we need to prepare our departments” for the possibility that “there may be some pretty serious cuts and pretty serious reductions in spending” this year.

For example, Fremont County Clerk Julie Freese said the county could save more than $1.3 million by keeping currently vacant positions open – including two in the library department, six in the sheriff’s department, six in the detention center, two in the road department, and one in the clerk’s office. 

Commissioner Mike Jones said they could also consider cutting “non-statutory spending” that supports things like recreation, museums, libraries and the fair, and they could decrease the amount the county contributes to employee health insurance plans.

“That hurts our employees, but it does relieve the county budget,” he said. “That’s the work that we have to do from here. … We have to dig down through the numbers and say what’s really palatable. (That’s) our job.”

Commissioner Clarence Thomas said it would be like “going back to 2016,” when Fremont County was in “hardcore slash-cut” mode and government agencies had to “do more with less.”

“We made it work by saying, ‘No,’” Thomas recalled. “We made it work by not agreeing to almost everything everybody wanted. … We need to go back to that mindset – and I don’t mind that, because we can do it. We’ve been there. We just have to come together as a Commission to make that happen.”

Allen agreed that the Commission will have to be prepared to “take an overall picture of the departments and what the costs are (and) just say, ‘No.’”

“That’s just going to have to be the way it is,” he said.

Freese pointed out that the social services Fremont County provides aren’t statutorily required, either. 

She also noted that Fremont County’s reserve account currently holds $7 million, but Freese said that’s actually “not a lot” of money, because the reserves are used to keep county government operating “when we’re waiting for taxes to come in” each year, and “we barely really have enough to make sure that works well” as it is.

The Commission decided to revisit the county budget discussion during their next meeting March 4, then meet with department heads March 10 to continue the conversation after the Legislature has convened.

“At that time we will have a better understanding,” Allen said. “We won’t know anything until after (that).”