City, county, lawmakers talk local, state funding
City councilors, county commissioners and state legislators met Wednesday to discuss the challenges faced by local communities, and the brief ‘reprieve’ offered by massive federal spending.
Local leaders from all levels of government gathered Wednesday to share information and updates on a host of issues facing Albany County.
Much of the discussion centered around funding for city and county services and, by extension, the state and federal funding that supports local communities. Right now, a massive influx of federal spending and the high price of oil and gas are propping up the state’s near future.
Rep. Cathy Connolly (HD-13) said that won’t last, and expressed a desire to leverage current blessings into a more stable future.
“If we’re going to be visionary, the time is now,” she said.
Municipal funding comes largely from the state and is used for everything from street repairs to staff salaries. But Assistant City Manager Todd Feezer and Mayor Paul Weaver said it has become increasingly difficult to provide the level of government services people are accustomed to in the face of declining direct payments from the state.
“The demand for services goes up and the revenue goes down,” Weaver said. “It’s not sustainable over time.”
Possible solutions floated during the meeting included fighting for more straightforward per-capita direct distributions from the state, or convincing the Legislature to allow local communities to tax themselves.
“We’ll continue to fight for that flexibility,” said Sen. Chris Rothfuss (SD-09).
In addition to direct payments, the city of Laramie receives “hardship” payments from the state, and one way to increase those payments might be to assess the value of the University of Wyoming campus.
The university doesn’t pay taxes, but does use some public services, such as the Laramie Fire Department. Councilor Bryan Shuster said demonstrating how much the city could be making in tax revenue would be helpful for justifying a greater hardship payment.
“Since all their records are open to everyone just like our cities are, you could look at their expenditures on what they actually physically buy — as in vehicles, food services, everything like that — you could look at that and assess how much it would have been in sales tax,” he said.
Weaver agreed that it would be interesting for the city and the city’s residents to know, and Rothfuss added that having a good idea of that missing revenue would be helpful for legislators.
“When justifying the hardship payments, having those types of ‘this is where we’re losing out, and that’s why need the hardship’ is an important point for discussion,” he said.
Local government officials informally agreed to have the city’s finance division and the county’s new assessor dig into the issue.
The gathered officials also discussed anticipated federal funding, from the American Rescue Plan Act and the $1 trillion infrastructure bill, or from the possible Build Back Better bill. Freezer asked that those funds be distributed quickly.
“We would appreciate it if the legislature would either pass those funds through directly to the cities and let us use those funds as we see needed, or use existing channels to disburse those funds,” he said, adding the city would like to spend some of that money on wastewater projects.
The governor has recommended that $100 million of the state’s ARPA funding be dedicated to cities, counties, towns and tribes, but final distribution details are up to the State Legislature.
Wyoming’s economic outlook is currently being bolstered by the influx of federal funding and the currently high price of oil and gas. Wyoming receives about 70 percent of its budget from royalties.
“We have a one-trick tax system and when it goes well, it goes well,” Rothfuss said. “And we’ve just happened to have had some fortune over this last year. There’s no reason to project that much further, realistically.”
He added that the combined benefits from massive federal spending and booming energy markets offer simply a 2-3 year “reprieve” from Wyoming’s economic woes.
“As you’ve seen, the legislature just takes a reprieve as a ‘don’t do anything, don’t solve any problems’ approach, so I’m concerned that we won’t continue to take revenue seriously,” Rothfuss said.
Connolly added that the new federal funding should be used strategically, recognizing that the “bail out” is not a long-term solution either.
“We’ve got money that’s coming in from the feds and we just have to figure out how to distribute it — but in all honesty, that does not take care of what our revenue issues are in the state,” she said. “We need to think about it differently.”
Connolly reiterated something Democrats have long argued to little avail: that Wyoming needs to consider other revenue sources, and specifically taxes.
“We need to think about our future,” Connolly said. “And our future could include an increase in sales tax, a modest increase, or an establishment of an income tax, both personal and corporate.”
Commissioner Heber Richardson suggested more private solutions for long-term planning. He said Wyoming was “like a welfare state,” in which people receive far more in government services than they pay in taxes.
“I don’t believe that 500,000 Wyoming citizens can bootstrap themselves into a better position,” he said. “It takes outside investment.”
Richardson said local communities like Albany County need to attract “high capital-intensive but low infrastructure demand” investments that bring in money but not people.
“So wind farms are good,” Richardson said. “Some people complain they don’t create enough jobs, but I like them because we don’t have to build schools, wastewater plants, all kinds of stuff we would have to if it was a Tyson chicken plant.”
Albany County Commissioners recently gave their seal of approval to a 26,000-acre wind farm in the south of the county. Another wind farm, in the north of the county, is under consideration.
Richardson added he wouldn’t support instituting taxes on food and medicine, as those would disproportionately impact the poor. But he said other taxes, such as those on electric vehicles, might help pay for related services, such as roads.
The meeting Wednesday was a work session of the Laramie City Council, meaning no votes were taken. In addition to Laramie City Councilors, the meeting was attended by all three county commissioners, as well as Senators Chris Rothfuss (SD-09) and Dan Furphy (SD-10) and Representatives Cathy Connolly (HD-13), Trey Sherwood (HD-14) and Karlee Provenza (HD-45).