 - Fremont County officials expressed concern last week about the number of property tax relief bills being proposed in the Wyoming Legislature this year.){kind=link}
(Lander, WY) – Fremont County Assessor Tara Berg expressed concern last week about the number of property tax relief bills being proposed in the Wyoming Legislature this year.
“We just keep adding them,” Berg told the Fremont County Commission during a regular meeting Jan. 21. “They’re coming fast and furious.”
Of the bill drafts the Wyoming County Assessors Association is tracking this year, Berg said seven will impact local property valuations – and some of those are being passed out of committee despite lingering questions about their implementation and ongoing impacts.
“We’re making bad legislation that affects a lot of things and a lot of people,” Berg said. “They said there may be some amendments coming, but then they’re also pushing them through and letting somebody else deal with it. …
“I do see the necessity for some property tax relief, (but) we might be in dire straits when this is over.”
For more information, she referred the Commissioners to a Jan. 20 meeting of the Senate Revenue Committee, during which her colleague David Divis, the Assessor for Sweetwater County, did a “fabulous job of summarizing all of this.”
“He said, ‘You have, as a legislature, helped people,’” Berg recalled. “‘Please don’t do it to the tune of helping them on their tax bill and taking away their services.’”
During his testimony last week, Divis commended the legislature for providing property tax relief to “the people that needed the help.”
In particular, he said the state’s “resurrected” property tax refund program has “helped a ton of taxpayers” in need of relief – and it was backfilled by the state.
“It does not reduce any services (because) it’s funded by the legislature,” Divis said. “That program is working, (and) it helps the people that need it.”
The legislature also passed a 50 percent property tax exemption for long-term homeowners last year, Divis said, and they approved a 4 percent cap on residential property tax increases – neither of which came with backfill funding from the state.
As a result of those 2024 actions, Divis said property taxes have now fallen to No. 5 on the list of top issues for Wyoming residents, according to data from U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman’s office.
“Property taxes have dropped to No. 5, and that’s because of what the legislature has done to help taxpayers,” Divis said. “You should credit yourself for that. This is a good move, and in the right direction.”
He pointed out, however, that the legislature has a new “tool now that you’ve never had before” to provide property tax relief to local residents.
He was referring to the Constitutional amendment Wyoming voters approved last year that separated residential real property into its own class of property for purposes of property tax assessments and authorized the Legislature to create a subclass of owner-occupied primary residences.
The Constitutional amendment “allows you to change the residential assessment rate … across the board,” eliminating the need for individual property tax exemption bills, Divis said – noting that Wyoming Sen. Cale Case, R-Lander, and others have already questioned the constitutionality of some of those exemptions.
“If you want to keep it uniform, the assessment rate is the way to go,” Divis said, adding, “Anything that you do past that, I would really urge you to backfill, (because) property taxes are all local money. Two-thirds goes to education, and the balance is all for services locally.”
Backfill
Divis’ testimony took place while the Senate Revenue Committee was discussing Senate File 69 – Homeowner property tax exemption, which would exempt 25 percent of the first $2 million of the fair market value of single-family residential structures and their associated improved lands from property taxes.
The legislation does come with backfill funding as it’s currently written, but the Senate Revenue Committee voted in favor of an amendment eliminating that provision during their meeting last week – with Case’s support.
Case explained that he voted for the amendment to remove the backfill because “the people that are paying for the backfill are not the same people” who receive the local services that property taxes provide.
As a result, he said, a state backfill effectively “disconnects” local residents from their “responsibility” to pay for local services and creates “incentives” that are “bad in the long run.”
He made a similar argument on the Senate Floor last week during the debate on Senate File 48 – Business property exemption.
“The issue of backfill will come up on all of these (bills),” Case said. “I hope we will think carefully about backfilling, because what backfilling is, is a redistribution of money from taxpayers to other taxpayers – dramatically different classes of taxpayers. …
“When we backfill, we’re kind of divorcing local decisions from local consequences, and we’re redistributing money. So I hope we’ll not go down the backfill route for any of this, and (that) will make us have a fair assessment whether we should be doing things like this.”
Wyoming Rep. Lloyd Larsen, R-Lander, echoed those concerns about backfills when the House of Representatives debated an amendment to House Bill 169 – Homeowner tax exemption-2025 and 2026 last week.
HB 169 would exempt 50 percent of the first $1 million in fair market value of residential properties in Wyoming from property taxes, and it also came with a backfill from the state general fund when it was originally proposed – but while discussing the backfill on the House floor, Larsen pointed out that “the structure of property tax and the structure of revenue coming in to run the general operations of state government are two different funding streams.”
When the state starts “mixing” those streams, Larsen said it creates “almost this socialist structure – that government has to provide everything, and that we as individuals don’t have to do anything for the services and what we get and what we receive.”
Local residents “vote on what we want to have property tax assessments for,” Larsen added, and if the state gets “in this nice habit of backfilling,” those local residents would be “crazy not to pass every tax assessment (they) can, because the state is going to backfill it.”
Wyoming Rep. Pepper Ottman, R-Riverton, spoke in favor of HB 169 last week, noting that, “with the rising property taxes that we have seen over the last few years, lots of people are at risk.”
“We are tasked with keeping people in their homes,” Ottman said. “This is a good bill to hit our people in our counties now, because their property taxes are coming due, and if they do not pay them, they will lose their homes.”
HB 169 is intended to provide property tax relief in tax years 2025 and 2026.
After that, Berg said Wyoming residents will have the opportunity to vote on the “People’s Initiative to Limit Property Tax in Wyoming through a Homeowner’s Property Exemption,” which was certified this year and is scheduled to appear on General Election ballots in 2026.
“Their goal is to make one of these (bills) pass at a 50 percent reduction, sunset it in 2026, the people will pass the people’s initiative at 50 percent, and we’ll just stay … with that,” Berg said.