• The Joint Appropriations Committee wrapped up its first round of hearings Friday.

 

By Maggie Mullen, WyoFile.com

The Wyoming Legislature’s Joint Appropriations Committee wrapped up two weeks of budget hearings Friday in Cheyenne and adjourned until Jan. 5, when the committee will reconvene for the remaining agency presentations.

Lawmakers will be responsible for crafting and passing the state’s next two-year spending plan, also known as a biennium budget, during the upcoming 2026 legislative session. It is the one task lawmakers are constitutionally obligated to complete in even-numbered years. 

The process formally kicked off in November, when Gov. Mark Gordon provided his $11.1 billion draft budget recommendation. Lawmakers ultimately hold the purse strings, so the governor’s recommendations are just that. 

The hearings followed the governor’s opening bid and provided an opportunity for agencies to make their own suggestions and justifications, and for lawmakers to interrogate the requests. As part of that, each state agency presents what’s called a standard budget, which includes no more than the amount needed to enable that office to provide the same level of services in the next budget cycle as it has in the current one. 

If an agency seeks to diverge from that spending level, such as for new equipment or a special project, it must develop and present an “exception request” to lawmakers. 

The first two weeks of hearings included about 40 state agencies. Here are five takeaways from those discussions. 

 

Lawmakers are grappling with the proper role of government

The Wyoming Freedom Caucus — a group of Republicans who won control of the House in 2024 — pledged earlier this year to reduce the state’s budget, citing “pre-pandemic spending levels” as a general target. 

Exactly what those cuts will look like remains to be seen, but a desire for smaller government appears to be driving the initiative.

In separate discussions with the Wyoming Business Council and the Wyoming Department of Health, Freedom Caucus lawmakers pushed back on funding requests as inappropriate uses of tax dollars. 

“I just don’t see how this is the proper role of government,” Rep. Ken Pendergraft, R-Sheridan, said in response to a proposal by the health department to try and prevent residents from falling into financial ruin resulting from catastrophic illness or injury. 

The week before, Pendergraft made similar remarks to the Wyoming Business Council, which is urging lawmakers to earmark funds to help communities meet business-friendly infrastructure needs, like extending water and sewer service to business parks. 

“How do you answer those that say it is not the role of government to build infrastructure?” Pendergraft asked Josh Dorrell, CEO of the business council. 

There are numerous examples across Wyoming, Dorrell said, that indicate the state’s minimal “investment in infrastructure” isn’t enough to boost economic prosperity and job creation.

 

Wildfire legislation 

While lawmakers did not take any formal action on the budget bill throughout the two weeks of hearings, the committee voted to sponsor three bills aimed at wildfire response. 

One piece of legislation would establish a 12-person wildland fire suppression team, a second bill would authorize wildland firefighters to participate in Wyoming’s retirement system. Additionally, the committee voted to sponsor a third proposal that would authorize firefighters to receive hazard pay and paid time off. 

“I urge the Legislature to support our coherent recommendations to enhance our ability to put out fires from the start,” Gordon wrote in his budget letter. 

The bills will now be up for consideration by the full Legislature when it convenes in February. 

 

Federal cuts are shaping budget requests

Several state agencies are feeling the effects of federal cuts.

The Department of Family Services, for example, is asking lawmakers to use state dollars to cover a reduction in federal funding of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as SNAP. About 28,000 state residents, mostly children, rely on SNAP to buy groceries.

Starting next October, the Trump administration’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act will shift billions in SNAP costs from the federal government onto states. The bill also makes changes to program eligibility, shifts a significant portion of administrative costs to states and ends a nutrition-education program. 

As part of its request, DFS is asking lawmakers to fund the nutrition-education program so that it is not eliminated in Wyoming.

“This is an educational program for people who have very low incomes to learn how to stretch their food dollar further, to learn how to build healthy activities into their lifestyle, and to help their children do the same,” DFS Director Korin Schmidt told lawmakers. 

In his own recommendations, Gordon urged legislators to spend $5.5 million to mitigate federal SNAP cuts.

Meanwhile, Wyoming PBS is facing a $3 million funding shortfall after Congress rescinded $9 billion in previously allocated funds in July, effectively cutting all federal support for NPR, PBS and their member stations. 

Wyoming PBS CEO Joanna Kail has defended the state’s congressional delegation and their vote to gut the federal funding her agency has historically relied on. 

“PBS lost the trust of many Americans because it stopped listening to them,” Kail reiterated to lawmakers on Wednesday. “Concerns about bias, whether others agreed with them or not, were real to the people who raised them. When people feel dismissed, they withdraw their trust. And that loss ultimately led to the nationwide loss of federal funding for public broadcasting.” 

Wyoming PBS is now asking state lawmakers to fill its funding shortfall. 

 

What wasn’t said 

In 2023, the Wyoming Department of Corrections sent 240 inmates to be housed in a private prison in Mississippi due to staffing shortages. 

Today, 128 of those inmates remain in Mississippi, WDOC Director Dan Shannon told lawmakers. As such, the department is asking lawmakers for a one-time appropriation of $9.3 million to cover out-of-facility housing expenses.

“This request includes transportation expenses to initiate the exit plan upon reaching reasonable staffing levels,” the department’s budget request states. “Once all of our inmates are returned to the WDOC facilities, we will revert any unused funding.” 

Lawmakers, meanwhile, did not broach the subject of an ongoing lawsuit against several former and current officials at the women’s prison in Lusk. 

In the last five years, three former prison guards at the Wyoming Women’s Center have been convicted and found guilty of sexually assaulting female inmates. In August, one of those women filed a federal lawsuit, alleging that the sexual abuse she experienced was the result of “deliberate indifference to the rights and safety of inmates” by the prison’s staff and leadership.

The case’s most recent filings pointed to a 2023 federal audit that found surveillance camera blind spots within the facility and an incomplete investigation into staff-on-inmate sexual abuse allegations, among other deficiencies. 

The Wyoming Attorney General’s office is seeking to dismiss the case. 

 

Fashion statements 

Several members of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus wore red blazers on Wednesday of both weeks to make a statement, but clarified their fashion choices had no connection to Monarchists’ decision to wear red during the American Revolution.

“It’s about public awareness, in particular, that we are headed for a fiscal issue. Red being ‘in the red’,” House Appropriations Chairman John Bear, R-Gillette, said on the first occasion, pointing to a Legislative Service Office long-term forecast.

Sen. Mike Gierau, D-Jackson, thanked Bear for the clarification.

“I thought, frankly, that you were just highlighting the new PBS series from Ken Burns on the American Revolution,” Gierau said. “Last night we opened up a big can of whoop ass on people that wore red coats at Yorktown. So I just thought that’s what it was all about. But thanks for straightening me out.” 

To add to the confusion, Rep. Trey Sherwood, D-Laramie, was also wearing red hues that day, but as Wyoming Public Radio reported, Sherwood’s fashion choices were a reference to the movie “Mean Girls,” wherein the main characters wear pink on Wednesdays. 

 

What’s next?

The committee will reconvene for two weeks in January. The first week will involve the remaining budget presentations. Lawmakers will begin to make decisions on the committee’s proposed budget bill in the second week. 

State financial forecasters will also present lawmakers with an updated report at that time.

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