CHEYENNE—In an unprecedented move, Senate leadership announced Wednesday night that the upper chamber would not pass a supplemental budget during the 2025 general session.
“After weeks of diligent consideration, the Wyoming Senate has concluded that now is not the time to increase spending needlessly,” Senate leaders said in a joint statement.
The decision raises questions about the future of disaster recovery funding after a historic year for wildfires in Wyoming, among other appropriations. It could also prevent more severe cuts being pushed by House leadership.
Several longtime lawmakers told WyoFile they were unaware of another time legislators had declined to pass a supplemental budget. By his own account, Rep. Steve Harshman, R-Casper, said it may very well be the first time since the Legislature began crafting supplemental budgets in 1975.
In even-numbered years, lawmakers craft the state’s upcoming two-year budget, also known as a biennium budget. In odd-numbered years, as lawmakers have been doing this session, the Legislature works on the supplemental budget — which, as the name implies, supplements the financial plan already in effect.
This year, however, Senate leadership says it’s inessential.
“The 2025-2026 biennium budget provides the necessary funding to run the state, with only eight months until budget discussions begin, now is not the time for this supplemental agreement,” according to the press release.
In his budget recommendations, Gov. Mark Gordon asked lawmakers to prioritize funds for wildfire recovery, energy projects, emergency funds for local governments and reimbursement rates for maternity and mental health care.
The Wyoming Freedom Caucus-stacked Joint Appropriations Committee responded by cutting approximately $235 million from his recommendations.
And after the House and the Senate completed their separate deliberations, the upper chamber had approximately $109 million more in spending than the lower chamber. The split paled in comparison to last year’s billion-dollar divide, but highlighted several philosophical differences that would have likely been difficult for the two chambers to reconcile.
As lawmakers developed a supplemental budget, they also advanced several bills to cut residential property taxes — each with a varying risk of drying up revenue for local governments. Property taxes fund local services including K-12 education, law enforcement and community colleges. And the risk of cutting off revenues prompted debate about whether or to what degree the state should reimburse those dollars.
Two chambers worked on their own versions of the budget independently, and the House lurched ahead of the Senate, promptly completing its budget presentations and appointing members to a committee to reconcile the budget bill differences. The Senate, meanwhile, only finished those tasks this week.
“I wish that the communication had been better,” House Appropriations Committee Chairman John Bear, R-Gillette, told WyoFile. “And that they wouldn’t have dropped it on us as a surprise as we’ve been trying to get them to meet with us for three weeks on the budget.”
It will now be critical to “ensure that all the important services are funded that the people are expecting,” Bear said, and the House will need to “get things into different bills to ensure that nothing slips through the cracks.”
While the decision was not made lightly, Senate President Bo Biteman, R-Ranchester, said in a statement that his chamber “determined that we need to hold off on the budget until we know what the impact of historic property tax cuts and the successful rightsizing of the federal bureaucracy by the new administration.”
Funding for certain items would be “covered in stand-alone legislation without adding hundreds of millions of dollars to the budget,” according to a press release.
Sen. Chris Rothfuss, D-Laramie, echoed that thought to WyoFile late Wednesday.
“But at the same time, it’s certainly appropriate for the governor, if he chooses, to have a special session to address wildfire funding,” Rothfuss said, since Gordon is permitted to hold a single-topic special session.
Last year’s historic wildfires, which burned more than 810,000 acres, completely wiped out the state’s firefighting coffers.
Rothfuss also pointed out that the external cost adjustment for education, for example, is already in another bill. Education funding came into sharp focus Wednesday when a judge ruled Wyoming unconstitutionally underfunds schools and ordered lawmakers to address the issue.
“We’ll be OK without [the supplemental budget],” Rothfuss said. And Senate leadership’s decision “is a rational approach as an alternative to just trying to dramatically cut the budget.”
Harshman, who among other lawmakers has raised concerns about the Legislature depleting the state’s savings and education funding, told WyoFile late Wednesday that while the move to hold off on a supplemental budget is unusual, it may be prudent.
“We should probably push pause to make sure this is what the people of Wyoming want,” Harshman said.
This is a breaking news story and may be updated.
I think that this move was somehow meant to stick it to the Freedom Caucus. (Metaphorically speaking of course). I’m not quite sure why, how come or what for but stand by Wyomingites there’s more to come at a later date. LOL
It is a brilliant move. The supplemental requests work like this…
July 1, 2024 Biennium Budget starts
July 1 to mid September/early October Agencies form supplemental Budget requests
October, Governor and staff interview agencies over budget requests
November Governor makes recommendations to Legislature.
Agencies are requesting more money with only 15% of the biennium complete. They have no plans for saving money or how they could save money. A supplemental request is always made with a bare minimum of information.
It should only be allowed for emergencies, and if it is made, it should have much higher evidence presented for the need for more money.
The legislature should actively reject these requests.
This is not a Budget Session, yes supplemental funding may be considered in a General Session, but there is no requirement that supplemental funding bill be passed. One aspect that should not be ignored is the fact that the less freedom caucus insists on pushing the ideological dogma of their out of state dark money puppet masters rather than addressing the real issues facing Wyoming. By not passing a supplemental budget bill the Senate has denied the less freedom caucus and their puppet masters a platform from which to further advance their ideology. They can’t say “the Legislature established a position on funding an item in the supplemental budget” if in fact there is no vote on that issue. This may be one of the most brilliant moves the Senate made this session.
The legislature is overwhelmingly dominated by the Republican Party but they can’t even reach agreement on a basic issue like funding the government. Once again, we see that Republican politicians do not know how to govern. But they do an outstanding job of producing clown shows
Will Wyoming voters notice that this is the kind of disfunction you get from electing Freedom Caucus members to the legislature? I’m not holding my breath.
Oh my goodness, lots of civics being on display and nobody appears to have a grasp on them.
Walt and Riki… this is a General and Budget Session per the statues, the Budget Session is next year. Every session is a budgets session. That is the primary function of the legislature to exercise the purse strings.
Barbara, Hope is a statue in the Rotunda. Hope in the messy sausage making legislature is fleeting and your outcome may not be others preferred outcome. Hope belongs only to those who have no control. I love that Carrie Underwood ironically performed in the Trump inauguration. Her song linked below might be better exploring why Hope is in the capitol.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lydBPm2KRaU
Jeff the entire state is beholden to out of state money. Do you really see board meetings of the largest mines, oil companies, trucking companies, power generation companies being held in Wyoming? Exactly how much money funds Wyoming Government from Federal money that comes from NOT our state. Pretty sure that the Freedom Caucus is not a cult. It is a very small part of Wyoming conservative politics. And read below on how the leadership of the Senate is actually in control.
Rex, How do you know that the Senate decision was not planned even before the session like in December?
“Saying” that the Senate will not pass a budget bill is all about control of policy in Wyoming. The supplemental budget funds policy of particular agencies that want more money… several have been doing this in every year. If the Senate does not pass a budget bill, the message might be to agencies that have abused the budget process… “Stop it”. These agencies would be Dept of Health, Corrections, Dept of A&I, and UW. All have asked for supplemental budgets since 2004. Agencies are and never should have been in control.
Or the Senate is sending a message to the House. “Thanks guys… you passed a budget, now we control the ball. By the way governor… you can’t veto what you can’t see on your desk. Did you think that after last years large budget increase, that there would be no pushback?”
The Senate may have planned this bottleneck on legislation. Bottlenecks give control when pouring the wine. Holding the bills to the end give the bill holders control. Beware… time is the final constraint.
These people had one job.Apparently, culture war issues take precedence over the budget during the (ahem) BUDGET session.
You’re right about them prioritizing culture wars over actual state business no matter what the session is, but this wasn’t a budget session which is why it was a supplemental budget. But, it would be hard to tell given all the culture war bills last year during the actual budget session.
A glimmer of hope comes out of this mess in Cheyenne. Education, Women’s Health and wild fires…..Let’s keep up the return to sanity….
👍 Thank you for the dose of optimism Barbara.
Glad to see that the Wyoming Senate isn’t beholden to out-of-state money or run by fishy transplant ideologues. The Freedom Caucus is like a doomsday cult that wants to blow up everything to create their utopia for the 1%.
Perhaps this unprecedented move could have been decided at the beginning of the session before all of the time and effort was expended by the appropriations committees and debates held on the budget bills in both houses of Legislature. What games these legislators play.
As I recall, most the recommendations made by committees who met over the course of the last year were trashed by the house the first week. The Freedom Caucus came in with their own agenda they were bound and determined to shove down everyone’s throats.