CHEYENNE—The Laramie County Fire Authority gets a call about every five minutes, according to Fire Chief Jason Caughey.
Some of those calls are about fires, but most are for other needs — flooded basements, a fight or a medical emergency. Caughey told WyoFile that his unit responds to all such pleas for help — for now.
Uncertainty about whether that would continue brought Caughey to the Wyoming Capitol’s rotunda on Wednesday.
Flanked by dozens of other first responders from Goshen, Platte, Weston and Laramie counties, he urged lawmakers to pump the brakes on property tax cuts that are estimated to cost local governments and special districts millions of dollars in lost revenue.
If that legislation is enacted, Caughey said, he’s concerned his unit won’t “be able to respond to all of those events. We’re only gonna be able to respond to the most significant ones.”
Despite what some lawmakers tell voters, property taxes do not fund state government.
Instead, they pay for local services like county fire departments, K-12 education and transportation, senior centers, hospitals, water and sewer, community colleges, law enforcement, libraries and the construction and maintenance of roads and sidewalks.
But taxpayers don’t always realize that, Yoder Fire Chief Justin Burkart told WyoFile.
“When you go door to door and you ask them, ‘Hey, do you want to reduce your property tax?’ Everybody is going to say ‘yes.’ But what they don’t know is that property tax stays in the county, [and] provides services,” Burkart said.
In response to rising home values in several counties — and correlated spikes in tax bills — lawmakers passed five homeowner relief bills in 2024. Gov. Mark Gordon approved all but one.
This year, some lawmakers are seeking more significant reform and are expecting local entities to tighten their belts and rely on whatever reserves they may have. But that’s getting pushback — and not just from firefighters.
Special districts are speaking up, too.
“If you look at special districts, it’s from birth to grave,” Craig Haslam, President of the Wyoming Association of Special Districts, told WyoFile, alluding to hospital and cemetery districts being affected by property tax cuts. And if taxpayers don’t want to fund certain local services, Haslam said, lawmakers should let local voters make that decision for themselves via special district elections.
“Let the local folks make those decisions,” Haslam said.
Joining special districts, at least one Sheriff’s office and one community college are asking citizens to call their lawmakers in support of backing funding for local services.
Some legislators are already on their side.
“My position today is the same as the past,” Rep. JD Williams, R-Lusk, said at the Capitol demonstration. “A 50% property tax cut is an unwise policy change for Wyoming and for small town Wyoming in particular.”
Jackson Republican Rep. Andrew Byron, a volunteer firefighter, told WyoFile that House leadership is “digging in its heels” when it should be cautious about the repercussions of legislative decisions.
Sheriff’s office
The Laramie County Sheriff’s Office accused lawmakers of aiming to “defund the police” on its Facebook page. It took particular aim at Senate File 69, “Homeowner property tax exemption.”
As passed by the Senate and sent to the House, the bill would apply a 50% exemption on the first $1 million of assessed value for single-family homes for the next two years.
House Bill 169, “Homeowner Tax Exemption-2025 and 2026,” proposes identical cuts, but the House measure also provides a $125 million “backfill” to reimburse local governments for revenue lost to property tax cuts.
While SF 69 did not include a backfill, the Senate earmarked $15 million in its budget bill to reimburse special districts related to health and emergency management services.
“I urge our legislators to recognize that temporary measures, like SF 69, are merely a band-aid solution that could jeopardize the very safety we all depend on,” Laramie County Sheriff Brian Kozak wrote.
Kozak pointed back to last summer, when his office used some of its recruitment funds to place a billboard in Denver.
“Work in Wyoming where breaking the law is still illegal and cops are funded!” it read.
“It helped us attract professionals who moved to Wyoming because they believed public safety is valued by our elected representatives,” Kozak wrote on Facebook.
But property tax cuts, Kozak wrote, will force layoffs.
“I urge the Legislature to not California our Wyoming and take care of our first responders,” he wrote.
Community college
The Central Wyoming College Board of Trustees is also ringing the alarm.
The trustees signed a special resolution Tuesday asking legislators to seek “targeted tax relief” that also “stabilizes funding” for local services.
The resolution calls upon voters to contact their elected representatives to “voice support for targeted tax relief and long term tax reform that continues to support local services, including local community colleges.”
According to the press release, the property tax cuts up for consideration would cost the college more than $1 million next year alone, requiring immediate reductions in the upcoming fiscal year that begins in July.
“Central Wyoming College works to further local economic development, provide top-notch education to Wyoming residents, provide cultural enhancing events, and employs more than 200 full-time and 400 other employees in Fremont, Teton and Hot Springs counties,” according to the press release.
House responds
Perhaps feeling the mounting pressure, the House made significant changes to SF 69 Thursday, adopting seven amendments.
The most dramatic change came from Rep. Ken Clouston, R-Gillette, who brought an amendment to give the bill a more targeted approach. More specifically, Clouston’s amendment proposes that the bill’s 50% exemption would be applied to how much a home’s value increased between 2019 and 2024 in place of the original 50% flat exemption.
This approach, Clouston said, accounts for the diversity of counties.
“Our problem is … since 2019, some of our counties and residencies have seen a massive increase in property taxes, but others haven’t,” Clouston said.
Eight counties collect less in property tax now than they did in 2015, according to an analysis by the Wyoming Taxpayers Association.
Clouston convinced several Freedom Caucus members and allies with this argument, including Sheridan Republican Reps. Ken Pendergraft and Tom Kelly, who both spoke in favor of it.
“This is the correct route to go,” Kelly said. “This addresses the problem in the most elegant way.”
Clouston’s amendment did not include an owner-occupied stipulation or a backfill, but said he was open to the former.
Rep. Martha Lawley, R-Worland, said she supported the amendment but that she’d still like to see the bill include a backfill.
“This doesn’t really take into account how much the county depends on property taxes,” Lawley said.
House Revenue Committee Chairman Rep. Tony Locke, a Freedom Caucus Republican from Casper, spoke against the amendment.
“Probably the biggest issue is, we’re trying to get some immediate relief into the hands of our people,” Locke said. “And the question is, can we make this work together with getting some immediate relief while we move in a direction like this?”
Rep. Art Washut, R-Casper, spoke in favor of the amendment, saying it moved away from punishing counties, like his own, that have learned to accommodate Wyoming’s booms and busts by building up reserves.
“Some of you haven’t even lived in our state during a time of a real bust, but those of us who’ve been around a while know just how awful those conditions can be,” Washut said.
A third of the Casper Police Department was laid off in a mid-1980s bust, said Washut, a former officer.
“So my city’s learned from those lessons, we put money away,” he said.
The bill passed second reading on a voice vote before Rep. Steve Harshman, R-Casper, brought a successful motion to lay back the bill until next Tuesday, and Rep. Mike Yin, D-Jackson, requested the Legislative Service Office provide an updated version of the bill with its new incorporations.
“I’m just making this motion, just so the public will be able to see what we’ve done for third reading,” Yin said.
Meanwhile, Senate leadership had not referred HB 169 to a committee at publishing time. The bill was received by the upper chamber on Jan. 24.
Taxation is theft, extortion if you want to be specific.
Property taxes are the reason that no one truly “owns” their own home, even after the mortgage is paid off.
How about a 75% exemption of the increase appraisal of the increase for the 5 years in the original amendment. That would leave the annual increase at the approximate of 5% a year which is near the 4% allowed for future increases in property tax currently in law.
While I am against the property tax cut specifically due Wyoming’s need to reduce it’s dependence on mineral taxes, some of these County entities are crying wolf – not all, every county is different and some have their own fiscal challenges, but Laramie County’s Sheriff may be the biggest wolf of all.
Laramie County is not one of those fiscally challenged counties. Laramie County is budgeted to receive $26,145,000 in property tax revenues in fiscal year 2025. Total general fund revenues are budgeted to be $59,350,000. The general fund shows a beginning reserve balance of $87,000,000 – literally 16 months of general funds reserves based on the total general fund tax revenues to be collected in 2025.
According to the Wyoming Taxpayer Association 2024 report, 44% of Laramie County’s property taxes are derived from residential property – or about $11,500,000 assuming the same rate for 2025. A 50% reduction in residential property taxes represents about $5,800,000 less in property taxes for two years.
In last last three years, Laramie County’s cash reserves as grown $57 million – from 2021 to 2023 – the 2024 numbers are not yet posted by the County however I am sure we will see another bump in cash reserves.
Drilling a little deeper – From the Laramie County Budget, the Sheriff’s department budget has grown from just shy of $28.5 million to over $31.7 from 2024 to 2025. For 2024, the Sheriff’s office only spent $26.5 million of the $28 million budgeted.
The Sheriffs Department represents about 25% of Laramie County’s $130 million overall budget. Of the $5.8 million property tax reduction you can then theorize about $1.425 million impacts the Sheriff’s Department. Based on these numbers, it works out to about a 4% impact on the Sheriff’s budget – or close to what the Sheriff did not spend in 2024. Based on these numbers, the sky is not falling, nobody is defunding the police, there are no wolves in the neighborhood, mass layoffs are not necessary.
My numbers are not scientific, gleaning out the exact numbers are a little difficult due to the multiple line items within a 250 page budget document. But I think I am close. Many of these numbers are direct from the Laramie County Budget, others take some diving deep into the budget.
While building reserves good practice, I believe some Counties have more reserves than needed and while some are claiming the sky is falling, it may not really be falling. If in fact the Legislature does not back fill the property tax relief, Laramie County has more than adequate funds to back the property tax relief without the draconian reserves. Government can always use an opportunity to tighten it’s belt as well, including law enforcement, fire departments and other special districts. We have all become fat and happy with the influx of property tax dollars the last 5 years. Reminds me of the good mineral years where we spend, spend, spend.
Again, I think we need to use this as an opportunity to wean ourselves off mineral taxes, not create a wider divide. I am not in support of a property tax cut per se until we are more weaned off mineral revenues. Local Government could also stand to tighten their belts. The Laramie County Sheriff’s Department has seen a pretty significant increase in funds the last 3-4 years. While the 2025 operations budget is less, it’s still almost 40% more than 2022 budget according to page 58 of the 2025 Laramie County Budget. Stop crying wolf, the sky is not falling, time to tighten belts a little, time to use reserves to back fill property tax relief.
A quick review of Laramie County’s financial statements show from 2022 to 2023 the County’s unrestricted reserves grew $20 million. From 2021 to 2022 the reserves grew just shy of $10 million. From 2020 to 2021 the reserves climbed $27 million. In 3 year the unrestricted Laramie County reserves grew $57 million. The 2024 statements are not yet available.
Suck it up! The freedom caucus was voted in by a very large vote.
Look on the sunny side… If SF69 were to happen to pass the State House and your house were to happen to catch fire and the fire truck were to happen to lumber out of the fire house a half hour later with half a crew, half of its tires flat and half a load of water in the tank you’d almost certainly be guaranteed to get an additional break on the other half of any future taxes that you may happen to owe on the half of your house that may happen to still be standing…
Are you making threats that people’s homes are going to burn down now?
Say that to the Owners of the fire station that burned down on Yellowstone Road in Laramie County, Wyoming. With City Fire fighters a mile down the road sleeping soundly after a good lasagna meal, and no mutual support agreement with the county (apparently).
The coverage of the fire from cowboy state daily was pretty poor and in other venues it was non-existent. Yup, I live in the the county and that was my closest fire station. Still have not heard the cause. Pretty sure that the equipment burned in the fire was designated for use in California. County Commissioners are abusing the taxpayers on a regular basis. They let equipment that they wanted to use in another state burn up, when it is their job to protect assets of the county taxpayers. This is wrong on so many levels.
Not too worry, the County bought 2020 Carey Avenue. cowboystatedaily.com/2024/10/21/laramie-county-buys-wyomings-tallest-building-to-house-its-growing-government/
The county commissioners are arrogant real estate developers with the ability to tax. So is the city of Cheyenne.
http://www.cheyennecity.org/Your-Government/Departments/Public-Works/Belvoir-Ranch
The City of Cheyenne is contemplating trailheads at Harriman road… Seriously more than 18 miles from the city building on O’Neil and nearly 3/4 of the way to Albany county. Really, is that is the role of Cheyenne city government?
Whenever the City or County has money burning in it’s pockets, it will buy buildings, and real estate and load the taxpayers up with maintenance bills, whilst removing said real estate from the tax rolls.
When the taxpayers get fed up with irresponsible behaviors of local politicians and complain to legislators about the abuse, count on the Mayor and County Commissioners to threaten the jobs of first responders and activate fear.
The subtitle of this article “Firefighters, sheriffs, community colleges and special districts are calling for targeted relief for homeowners in place of blanket cuts that will compromise local services” says it all! If the County and the city were not engaged in practices that drop millions of dollars on growing government rather than ensuring services, then these bills would not be in the legislature.
The City of Cheyenne and Laramie County need a serious audit. The legislature should absolutely begin to carry out the obligations required by the Wyoming Constitution Article 4, Section 14. It has only been 35 years since the voters amended the constitution requiring the legislature to audit Cities and Counties.
The Cheyenne Mayor and City Council have abused the taxpayers for a long time. Laramie County has done the same. First responders are the pawns that the politicians use to threaten taxpayers into opening wallets for more abuse. Too bad the First responders do not read the County and City financial reports to know that the politicians have shorted their service for a long time. Yo, first responders, you are being used.
Like fish that voted away water.
Couldn’t agree more!
I’m tired of County employees getting involved in trying to prevent residents from getting a break from high property taxes.
Property tax relief…..somehow it just doesn’t feel right that the state legislature is giving tax breaks which will effect local tax dollars. Having said that I’m not for a carte blanche, one size fits all, flat percentage reduction. I’m hesitant about back filling, primarily because during the past few affluent years, there was not one local government that reduced the mil levy to reflect the increase tax $$ received due to property valuation increases. I don’t have answers/solutions, but some thoughts are: continue with allowing a homeowner to file for a refund to the state based on income limitations (if there was a state income tax you could apply for a deduction); roll back residential valuations to 2019 levels and then increase sequentially the value based on cost of living, or ????: all single family residential property purchased after 2019 should be valued at it’s purchase price and incrementally increased each year in line with older properties. These are just thoughts, maybe good, maybe bad. Wyoming has been noted for having “cheap” property taxes….that’s some of the reason we got in this situation because people moving in recognized it as such. So, if in an open market a buyer was willing to purchase property at X dollars, then that’s the valuation the property should be taxed at. Let’s take it one step further and say that, again assuming a willing buyer, if that properties sale price is X percent over the accessed valuation, then an added value tax should be levied at the time of deed transfer. One other thought, how many times have you seen a real estate ad for a ranch that says X amount of deeded land and XX amount of state or federal grazing lease? Why isn’t the added value of that grazing lease included in the property valuation. The seller reaps the benefit of having the added (non owned) land as it’s reflected in the selling price but never pays any added value tax on it. Again, just throwing out thoughts here.
It’s a common trope to say that no counties have cut back over the last 6 years, but it’s just not true. In Campbell, we don’t assess the full 12 mills. Four out of the last 6 years our county has made cuts. Our mill levy last year alone was reduced from 11.25 to 10.95.
I would also take issue that the legislature had not addressed this problem. The poor, elderly, and disabled can qualify right now for up to a 50% refund of their total property tax bill, something that has been in the books for years now. Same with the veterans exemption. Additionally, long term residents of 25 years can qualify for a new exemption. Further, the legislature last year put a cap on the increase of a home’s assessed valuation, limiting any increase to no more than 4%. This provision affects all homeowners, regardless of financial status or how long you’ve been a resident. Also, citizens passed a Constitutional amendment this last year that would put owner occupied residences into its own tax bracket to lower rates.
The only thing the state hasn’t done is give refunds or exemptions to every citizen. That seems to be the goal, which puts the ultra rich in Jackson on the same level as the poor and disabled. The Governor vetoed a bill last year that would have done that, citing constitutional concerns. The legislature also hasn’t done anything yet to reduce the new owner occupied rate class approved by the voters this last November. Why? Who knows. Maybe they would rather buy off voters with something more theatrical or sexy than reducing 9.5% to 8.3% (which would amount to a permanent 12.6% reduction in personal property taxes for homeowners). I guess a 12.6% permanent reduction isn’t as cool as a temporary 50% reduction for the next 2-4 years.
Could anyone explain how county agencies survived before our property taxes nearly doubled over the last few years.
Cynthia: That question has baffled me as well. I live in Lincoln County. My property taxes over 5 years have increased from $1740 to $4230. I believe the amendment offered by Rep. Ken Clouston, R-Gillette on SF 69 which “brought an amendment to give the bill a more targeted approach” is the correct path to take. It give the counties that have experienced the sharp increases a needed reduction, yet does not hurt the counties who need the property tax income.
We need fire service in the county more than we need a tax break. When fire chief Caughey Says it will affect how the Fire station can respond in my opinion is very serious. District #2 Fire station is huge in our neighborhood few years back they saved our house from flooding from a flaw to housing development drainage.They Sandbagged our home for over five hours, it was unbelievable. The fire chief is extremely honest and we should support them with whatever they need the hell with a tax break.
I left Wyoming in 2018, with mixed emotions. I moved because my spouse required a warmer climate for serious health reasons. I miss the mountains. When I left, I just knew bright folks like Steve Harshman, Art Washut, Brian Kozak and so many other good stewards, and true Public Servants were guiding the ship of state. Then along came the Freedom Caucus. My friends and family remaining in this beautiful Rocky Mountain State are looking at a future of depending on their respective neighbors, qualified or not, to fight fires, provide health care, educate their children, respond to crimes in progress and maintain their roads and bridges. For what good it does, I send them my thoughts and prayers.
I believe you are mistaken when you report all property tax stays local. A significant portion of local property tax gets sent to Cheyenne when taxes for schools exceed a certain threshhold. This doesn’t apply to all counties – but it is used to “equalize” school funding, taking from wealthy counties and moving it to poorer counties.
Is the legislature forgetting that in 2026, the next general Election, the residents of Wyoming will be voting on a referendum to the WY Constitution that will make a property tax cut permanent. Right now they had better leave well enough alone using the tax payer cuts that are currently in effect because in a year and a half there is going to be a big need to defeat a measure that will be devastating to local government because it will be permanent,
Yikes, It doesn’t matter if your right or left, but a must read is from Former Democratic Governor Dave Freudenthal who authored a book titled “Wyoming: The Paradox of Plenty,” It examines the state’s economic dependence on the energy industry and the historical development of its tax structure. He has lots to say about property taxes. Maybe we should have looked at the delima we are facing now back in 1960 or at least sooner than now!! The book is well researched and sort of a interesting read! I would say it is a fun read, but nothing is fun about taxes!!!
Elections have consequences. Vote Smarter Next Time.