Officials show how tax cuts may bleed county dry

‘We will do better,’ Rep. Winter says

The first guest at the Big Horn County Commissioner meeting on Dec. 16 was Representative John Winter, HD 28. 

 “This last session was quite interesting, but I guess more than anything was the time from the end of that session until now. With all the meetings we’ve had and the opportunity to meet with folks to try and figure out what is best for the counties in my particular district,” Winter addressed the commissioners and county officials.  

Winter represents four Wyoming counties, with Big Horn County a big part of his district. Winter said that people are not content regarding what is going on, and he is not for sure why. 

“We need to do what is necessary to make things clearer for the county leaders and the things we can do better at the state level,” Winter said,  before asking for questions. 

County Treasurer Nicole Vigil replied, “We are losing a lot of money in tax with all the exemptions that the legislation has approved. But it is without backfill so that really does affect the county. “

“Backfill” refers to the state providing reimbursement to local governments such as counties, cities, towns, and special districts for tax revenues lost due to property tax relief measures enacted by the state legislature. 

“We can’t hire to fill positions. We have to cut services,” Vigil said. Winter asked Vigil to explain the exemptions she was talking about. She listed the long-term homeowner property tax cut, which gives a 50% tax cut on homes, plus  a 25% across the board exemption. There is also new legislation that would reduce counties’ cut of vehicle registration fees. 

“If we keep cutting taxes for everyone, how are we (the county) going to function? How are all these tax cuts helping the county?” Vigil asked. 

Several offices in the courthouse are already a person short in staffing. Vigil added that while she agrees the tax cuts are good for the constituents, without the backfill a county can’t make its budget work.  

 “I don’t know what we are doing or where we are headed on this,” Winter conceded. “I need your help to do this. That is what I’m going to depend on. Then we can work together on a plan to overcome the problems that show up. I can see where, it’s pretty obvious in these county issues, there is a big concern amongst the people in the slots like you folks are in government offices.” 

County Emergency Management Coordinator LaRae Dobbs told Winter that she believed every county official in the room had the same concerns. 

”To say the cuts benefit your constituents, I will argue against that,” Dobbs said. “Because while it might appear to benefit them, they are going to lose services. Because we don’t have the funding in the county to continue everything at the level that are provided now… I don’t think our legislators, at this point, have done a very good job to get that information out to the public to understand that when those cuts come, what is actually being cut. You don’t have to pay quite as much on your taxes, and here is what you are not going to receive.” 

Dobbs added that when those cuts start to impact Emergency Services like law enforcement, there won’t be as many deputies, affecting emergency responses.  She expressed that either the cuts need to stop or backfill needs to happen. Commissioner Bruce Jolley pointed out that on top of the cut to emergency and day-to-day county services being cut, there are other things that will be impacted, such as Road and Bridge repairs. “When there is not enough money to do that, what do you do? You don’t do as much road work. That doesn’t mean the road gets any better, that means four, five or six years from now, if we have money, do we go back and fix them? It is a never catch-up battle when we don’t work on them all the time,” Jolley said. Vigil added that she had someone in her office that had taken the tax exemption, complaining about their road. She said jokingly that they might have to give back the exemption, so the county has money to fix it. “We have to remember that stuff still has to be done,” she said.  

County Assessor Gina Anderson told Winter that the county lost $300,000 in levy funds last year. She is sure it will be way more this year.

Winter told the group that he agrees. 

“These exemptions that are showing up…I’ve been concerned about this for quite a while too. Things are not happening in the right sequence. You folks telling me today means so much. We’ve got to have a push one way or the other for making these issues jive with what the county is trying to accomplish; I’m not sure that I understand all that,” Winter said. 

Jolley asked Winter if there was an end game. “Is there some magical number in the sky that our legislators are trying to hit to cut? Or is it like we are just going try to save the taxpayers this amount. Is there some kind of method to your madness when we stop taking more. UW wants $33 million, so we just take that from the counties. How do you look at that?” 

Winter replied, “The Big Horn Basin is in kind of a situation where there is a lot of counties that are, I don’t like to say in trouble, but they don’t have the resources coming in to satisfy many of their needs. So that is something we legislators got to look at. But it is pretty obvious a good share of the legislators down there have no clue about what is needed up here in this part of the state.” 

Jolley explained there are eight designated hardship counties in the state of Wyoming, which Dobbs pointed out make up over a third of the counties in the state.  These include Big Horn, Washakie and Hot Springs counties.  “A third of the state of Wyoming these decisions are hurting,” Dobbs said. “Not just making uncomfortable or making it so we have to reallocate. There is no money to reallocate. One third of your constituents in the state are going to be going without services that are considered essential.” 

District Clerk Serena Lipp asked Winter if the negative impact the bills will have were discussed in any of the committee meetings he attended. Not really, Winter said. “So there hasn’t even been a consideration or anybody making a plan, and we are a month away from the legislative meetings?” Lipp asked. 

 Winter again replied, “Not really.” 

Vigil noted that she is aware of several bills that address the cutting back of the registration fees. 

“It wouldn’t affect the state at all. They would still collect the fees that they’ve got. It would cut county fees by 77%. So, there is another $300,000-$400,000 not going to the counties and my special districts,” she said.  

Vigil explained that Big Horn County is unique in the number of special districts in it. There are four school districts, two senior centers, two hospital districts, numerous cemeteries, five BHC fire districts plus a Park County Fire District, nine towns, conservation districts, rural health, ambulance service, etc. that will all take a hit. When money is taken from the county it is taken from all the special districts, too.  She added that no country treasurer in the state is in favor of cutting the fees in that manner. Winter asked Vigil to send to him the information on the bills regarding registration fees. 

Vigil reported she was told by the Department of Revenue  that backfill would come as a form of property tax that she would distribute to the special districts as well. Vigil pointed out that Powell is building a big, beautiful library, as Big Horn County just closed two. 

“We would like to have some of those services in our small towns too. Because of all these cuts we don’t to have those things,“ she said. 

PROPERTY TAX VS SALES TAX 

Jolley told Winters that there are some legislative committees working on cutting out property tax and replacing it with sales tax.  

“It will not work in this county…,” Jolley said. “Because we don’t have stores in our areas, people go to Montana. However, people who can’t afford to go to Montana shop local. They will be the ones that really suffer… Someone better be screaming in those committees that it is not going to work for Wyoming.” 

Vigil noted that there would then be an additional burden in tracking where the sales tax was paid and making sure it went to the districts in that community. Some districts will get nothing as there would be little or no sales made in some towns. “It would be a nightmare,” she said.   

Commission Chair Deb Craft added that the county’s budget this year basically went back to the 2024 budget. The county was down $1,400,000. The department heads were asked to cut additional monies on top of the smaller 2024 budget guidelines.  Even with those cuts, the county still had to pull $400,000 from reserves. The cuts will be even bigger in the 2026 fiscal budget year. Dobbs added that it has to be the legislators that get the message out to the legislators. She added that Big Horn County legislators should be singing this from the top of the rafters but that that some legislators seem to be afraid of the Freedom Caucus and not getting re-elected.  

Craft asked Winter about bills cutting taxes more that are coming up in the next legislative session. He stated he wasn’t aware of any. 

Smallwood asked Winter his thoughts on the state’s reserves and investment money used to backfill to the counties while the legislators are sorting out the property tax issues. 

“Couldn’t the rainy-day funds be used to help the hardship counties?” she asked. “There are some counties that the property tax cuts haven’t touched because of mineral monies, etc. Would you be an advocate for using some of those funds for the counties and special districts so that these services, like the hospital, could be sustained while the legislature does their work to figure out how they want to tax in this state?” 

Winter replied it was pretty obvious this needs to happen. He would be willing to promote this if it would do what is needed. Smallwood told Winter it would be a stopgap to stop the hemorrhaging. 

Anderson explained to Winter that the Assessor’s Association meets regularly. They addressed how it is to make the bills work. The Association had round figures available for legislators, but felt like they were speaking to deaf ears.

Lipp asked him if, when he was voting for these bills, did he think about what would happen to the small counties? She explained that a lot of counties’ district courts aren’t impacted like the smaller ones are. Why wasn’t there a consideration of the hardship counties? 

Chief Deputy Clerk Jennifer Kirk, Lipp, Vigil and Jolley made the case that Big Horn County competes with open market wages and is losing staff in some cases.   In one case, a county employee went to work for the state yet still works in the courthouse. That employee’s salary is about double what the county was paying for essentially the same job. 

Jolley explained, “It makes me scared on how long we will keep our employees when we can’t replace them, when we can’t give them pay raises, we freeze everything. Our hands are tied. As our legislators make it hard for us to get by day to day. Other state agencies are paying the money.” 

Lipp added that the state is recognizing the value of good employees, but then cuts the local governments so they can’t compensate their good employees. 

Kirk noted their concerns are not about saving their own jobs. It is about getting people to understand that the cuts don’t just affect the persons working in the courthouse. The cuts touch every single person that lives in the county. 

“We are full speed ahead into a brick wall. We are coming to a disaster that we can›t come back from unless you guys step up to help us in some way,” she said.  

Winter said he was sorry the situation had come to this and it has taken him aback. 

“Looks to me like the counties on this end of the state are hurting except Park and Teton counties. We need to rethink some things. All I can say is I will work on this. We will do better,” Winter said.