Marti Halverson, North Vice Chairman of the Lincoln County Republican Party, stepped into the SVI Radio on Thursday, October 29 to discuss her thoughts and the GOP’s stance regarding Proposition 1, the 50% property tax reduction that will be on the ballot this Tuesday for the General Election.
(0:00) Heading into my second guest interview segment this morning on SBI Radio, Marty Halverson is (0:05) joining me in studio today. Marty, as the North Vice Chair of the Lincoln County Republican Party. (0:11) Marty, always great to have you in studio.
How are you doing today? (0:13) Duke, I’m fine. Good to see you again. Yeah, you as well.
Thanks for stopping by. (0:17) We wanted to talk about Proposition 1. Of course, a lot of discussion going on this as we (0:21) lead up to next week’s election on Tuesday. I think it’s important to remind our listeners (0:27) how this all came about.
This started as an initiative a couple of years ago. (0:32) About three years ago, they started gathering signatures of voters in Wyoming, gathered about (0:40) 45,000 signatures. Didn’t make it in time for the 2024 ballot, but the Secretary of State certified (0:51) the initiative for this year’s general election ballot.
(0:59) So it will be on the ballot this upcoming Tuesday as Proposition 1, the 50% property tax reduction. (1:05) Marty, if you would give us some of the details and specifics of what this (1:09) actually would do if passed from your understanding. (1:12) Sure.
First of all, Duke, I need to address the big lie that the opposition to Prop 1 (1:21) is spewing out there, that this is a 50% property tax cut. That is not true. It is a 50% (1:33) residential property tax cut.
It applies to residential properties only. (1:41) Across the state, the average of residential property tax revenues to the counties is 8%. (1:53) Only 8% of county revenues come from residential property taxes.
Prop 1 proposes to make that 8% (2:03) 4%. The property taxes on mineral or mining properties, commercial or industrial properties, (2:13) agriculture properties, second homes, vacation homes, corporate out-of-state investor-owned (2:21) properties, and the land on which a qualified dwelling sits are not subject to this exemption. (2:30) So it’s just the primary residence house, right? Exactly.
Just the house. (2:36) You have to have lived in that house for a year, and you have to attest to your county assessor (2:44) under penalty of perjury that you occupy the house at least six months a year. (2:51) Now some of the property tax relief that’s already come from the legislature goes up to (2:55) the first million dollar evaluation.
Is this similar to that, or is it the entire value of (2:59) the home? All right, that 25% homeowner exemption is on the first million dollars of fair market (3:07) value of your property, which includes your home. This exemption has a trigger in it that if prop (3:19) one passes, the 25% will go away. Gotcha.
Okay. Marty Halverson in the studio this morning with (3:27) the Lincoln County GOP. Marty, some of the questions I see on this, of course, how is it (3:35) going to impact a service district? And of course, you’re very well familiar.
You serve on the Mid (3:40) Valley Fire District, and so you get to work directly hands-in-hands with one of our local (3:45) districts. And so with speaking specifically of the Mid Valley, when you guys look at this, (3:50) what kind of impact would you expect it to have? Okay, I expect it to have an impact of between (3:56) eight and 10% of last year’s property tax revenues. We impose a 3% mill levy on the properties (4:09) within the service area, and we expect about an eight to 10% cut.
(4:19) Mid Valley Fire District has some very, very smart people. We knew when property taxes started (4:27) skyrocketing during the COVID area that our legislature would be addressing this, and (4:36) yeah, they did all right. They could have done more.
But knowing that property tax revenues (4:44) might be diminishing through legislative actions, we saved and saved every penny we could. We built (4:55) up a very nice reserve fund from which we were able to pay cash for two trucks to serve the (5:04) community. Going forward, we will have to trim areas that will not impact the residents of the (5:17) Mid Valley Fire District.
There are plenty of areas that we can trim eight to 10% and still (5:28) give the members of the service area 100% of the coverage they need and expect. (5:36) Marty, the Lincoln County GOP and also the state GOP have also come out in support of this. Why (5:43) do you think the GOP across the state are doing that? Because the Republican Party is the party (5:50) of lower taxes, and if that results in smaller government somewhere, that’s also a bedrock (5:58) tenant of the Republican Party.
Lower taxes, smaller government, and we hope Proposition 1, (6:08) regardless of the minor impacts it’s going to have across the state, may either stall the (6:17) growth of government in Wyoming or maybe even reduce it. With 25% of Wyoming workers getting (6:28) up and going to work for a paycheck signed by John Q. Public, we in Wyoming have become a government (6:39) economy. And just by looking at our state’s GDP, we are a government economy.
We are not a market (6:49) economy. Marty Halverson in studio, North Vice Chair of the Lincoln County (6:53) Republican Party, talking about Prop 1, which will be on the ballot this upcoming Tuesday (6:58) for the general election. So Marty, what else would you like to discuss when it comes to Prop 1? (7:04) Well, I did the numbers for Lincoln County, and these are numbers based on tax receipts (7:11) and expenditures from 2019 to 2025.
The 2026 numbers just came out September 31st, (7:24) so we don’t have those cranked in yet. But doing the calculations of the revenues (7:32) for the last six years, if Prop 1 passes, Lincoln County might see a hit of 1%. (7:43) And that calculation assumes that all residences in Lincoln County are going to qualify for the (7:54) exemption.
And we know full well in a valley full of snowbirds and investor-owned properties, (8:03) we estimate that 20% to 25% of the properties just in Star Valley will not qualify for the (8:13) exemption. Remember, you have to swear an oath to the assessor that you own the house for a year, (8:23) and penalty of perjury, if they find out you’ve lied, that’s felony perjury. (8:31) Marty, we’ve had other various tax districts on the morning show over the last couple of weeks (8:38) that have kind of addressed it from their standpoint, and there’s some concern about it (8:42) for special districts and the impact it might have to public services.
And you kind of address (8:48) this with Mid-Valley, but just generally speaking, what are your thoughts on that? (8:53) Generally speaking, these districts do derive their revenues from property taxes, (9:00) but I would remind them that the residential property taxes are all that is going to be (9:08) impacted. We still have all those non-eligible properties that (9:18) mill-dependent special districts are going to rely on. I don’t think that Mid-Valley’s (9:27) example is going to be any different from many of the other districts, when we keep in mind (9:35) that it’s only qualified residential districts and not all the other districts that I mentioned (9:44) earlier.
That’s Marty Halverson. Yep, Marty Halverson, again, the North Vice Chair of the (9:48) Lincoln County Republican Party. Proposition 1 will be on the ballot this upcoming Tuesday.
(9:52) Appreciate your insight, Marty. Anything we missed you’d like to mention? (9:55) Nope, I think I covered it, Duke. Thank you.
(9:58) Absolutely. It’s all part of the weekday wake-up this morning on the SVI Radio Network.