Representative Andrew Byron (R-Jackson) from House District 22 called into the Weekday Wake-Up on Monday, February 23 from Cheyenne to provide a legislative update. Rep. Byron discussed the budget bill, school recalibration and what has become known as “Check Gate.”

House District 22 covers portions of northern Star Valley.

(0:00) Thanks for starting your day with the weekday wake-up on the SVI Radio Network. (0:06) 743 this morning on SVI Radio. Joining us live over the phone from Cheyenne this (0:11) morning is Wyoming Representative Andrew Byron from House District 22, which does (0:15) cover the northern portion of Star Valley.

Representative Byron, good morning. (0:19) How is Cheyenne? A long weekend for the House of Representatives. Good morning, (0:25) Duke.

Cheyenne is great, yeah. I feel like I just went back to the capital this (0:29) morning for some meetings at 7 and I felt like I had never left. We worked, as (0:34) you alluded to, we worked till I think about 830 on Saturday night.

We started at (0:39) 8 on the third reading budget amendments and had about a half-hour lunch and (0:43) ended at 830. So it was a big push on Saturday, but we got it done. We (0:48) got the bill out of the body and it goes on to the Senate (0:52) Conference Committee now.

They’ll probably assign that (0:55) committee today or tomorrow and the two bodies will start working through the (0:58) differences and see where we get. Well, there are some differences, to say the (1:02) least. So let’s talk about what came out of the House with the budget.

(1:06) Some of the top things that were discussed over the last couple of weeks, (1:09) of course, should raises be given to state employees, what should be done with (1:13) the University of Wyoming, what should be done with the Wyoming Business Council, (1:16) PBS, all that stuff. Maybe give us some highlights on some of the big items (1:21) with the budget bill. Well, I’ll try to take that in order, Duke.

Yeah, so the first (1:25) one you mentioned was state employee raises. So the budget that came out of the (1:29) House Appropriations Committee that was presented to us, well actually the JAC, (1:35) included some state pay raises but not many. And the issue with that is with (1:39) troopers getting raises, that’s great and I’m fully supportive of that, but if (1:44) there’s support staff, if there’s dispatchers, if there’s the mechanics, if any of the (1:47) support staff is not able to get a raise and continue to do their job, nor are the (1:51) troopers.

So that was something we continued to battle and battle and (1:55) battle and even when you go to WIDOT, you know, we need a snowplow driver to (1:59) plow the roads and we need the mechanic to work on the snowplow so the (2:03) trooper can go respond to an accident. So it gets really complicated and that (2:06) original budget was pretty weak in terms of state pay raises, actually had less (2:10) than 10% of folks getting them. And these aren’t raises that are getting you up to (2:13) 2026 numbers, Duke.

These are raises that we’re just trying to get the entire (2:17) table, entire enterprise folks up to 2024 numbers. So third reading budget (2:23) amendment, we did get that in. That was a huge accomplishment.

It should not be (2:27) going to third reading for that kind of amendment, you know, that should have been (2:30) handled in second reading or maybe even originally in the JAC, but that’s water (2:35) under the bridge. And then University of Wyoming, yeah, they creatively added a (2:39) little bit of money back in, you know, I’m proud alumni. I think you and I have (2:42) talked about that and I’ll tell you, the fact that they wanted to cut the budget (2:47) at the University of Wyoming just to get their attention was, it was really an (2:51) unfortunate way to legislate.

So the House put a little bit of money back in, (2:56) the Senate, which is, they brought all the funding back in. They went, they (3:00) brought one amendment on second reading and it brought the entire Senate budget (3:04) back to the governor’s recommendations or most of it. So yeah, that was, that was (3:08) the big discussion about the university and I think there’ll be a (3:12) very contentious negotiation around that.

The Business Council, the Senate has a (3:18) lot more money in it. We don’t have a lot of money in it, but there’s been a (3:21) number, there’s a budget amendment passed to do a forensic audit of that (3:26) organization and I think it’s really good for the folks to see transparency (3:30) and dive into what the Business Council does, if it lives in the right place in (3:34) state government and how it helps our local communities. Because we heard from (3:38) dozens and dozens, from Star Valley to Gillette to Sheridan to Cheyenne of (3:42) companies that benefited from the help that the Business Council provides.

So (3:47) that was a big one. And then yeah, public broadcasting. A lot of emails around (3:50) public broadcasting.

It goes more than just radio, you know. There’s an integral, (3:55) you know, antenna system and emergency notification system tied into that. And (4:00) we argued about that a lot on the floor, but it, you know, it didn’t go great on (4:05) the House side.

The Senate is in a good position there and ultimately that’s why (4:09) we had to work an extra 12 hours. We had, I think, all of a sudden done 240 (4:14) amendments and probably less than 10% of those ended up getting into the budget. (4:18) So, pretty tough couple days.

Well, you mentioned that the House and (4:23) Senate budgets now go to a joint committee. So, remind our listeners kind (4:28) of what the process is for the budget now and what will happen moving forward. (4:32) So, any amendments that were mirrored, so they’re the same on both sides, those are (4:37) automatically in the budget.

Anything that was a few few words off or one body (4:41) brought it and one didn’t, those are negotiating topics. So, they’ll (4:46) assign a committee, both the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate (4:50) are assigned a committee, I believe, of six. And those folks will go have a (4:54) public meeting and conference and try to work out their differences and come to (4:58) an agreement.

They usually meet once, sometimes they’ll meet a second time for (5:02) a final negotiation. If that doesn’t go well, there’s some latitude of the (5:05) Speaker and the President to assign a new committee to negotiate on behalf of the (5:10) body. And then also you can go all the way to what’s called an open committee (5:13) where you reopen the whole budget in committee and you hash out the (5:18) differences and try to strike a deal.

You know, I think given that we didn’t (5:21) pass the supplemental budget net last year and how hard we’ve been working and (5:25) the fact that we don’t need to come back for a special session. I mean, the more we (5:29) come back for a special session tells me two things. One, we’re trying to become a (5:32) citizen legislature, which I think is a really bad idea and a precedent to set.

(5:37) And number two, I just don’t think it’s right for the people of Wyoming to have to (5:42) watch and see that we can’t figure out our differences down here in Cheyenne and (5:46) do our job. So I’m confident that we’ll get something done. And yeah, I’m (5:50) looking forward to getting back to my district.

We think a lot of folks wanted (5:53) to come home this weekend and get some time with their family and that quickly (5:57) disappeared on the House side as we worked through the day on Saturday. (6:00) Representative Andrew Byron, House District 22 on the weekday wake up with (6:03) the legislative report from Cheyenne. School recalibration a big topic, of (6:07) course, the the House bill from the GAC didn’t get introduced, didn’t didn’t get (6:12) the the vote to be introduced on the House, but the Senate one did with some (6:17) changes.

Has that Senate bill made it to the House yet or is that still still to (6:21) come? Yeah, the House side didn’t. They voted on that one introduction twice. They (6:27) tried to bring it back in and and we resisted it.

You know, Duke, that was a (6:30) that is a bad bill on the House side for our western school district. You and I (6:34) talked about that a few weeks ago. You know, I just think the committee didn’t (6:38) do a great job.

And kind of getting back to your question today, this morning (6:43) Senate has third reading. Last night when I checked there were two amendments on (6:47) third reading for the recal bill. I know one more getting filed this morning.

So (6:52) yeah, they will have a third reading on that recal bill. I’m fully confident it (6:57) will get through that body today. It’ll get read into the House probably on (7:00) Wednesday and then signed out to committee.

And it’s something, you know, (7:04) we really got to do. Talking to Lincoln 2 and Teton 1, they were supportive of (7:09) my vote of voting no. I continued to push folks to not introduce that bill (7:14) because I don’t think if it would have gotten onto the floor we’d had a chance (7:17) to amend it.

There just wasn’t a lot of appetite from that committee to listen to (7:22) other electeds. So that’s kind of been the name of the game down here, Duke. You (7:25) know, there’s 62 of us and we all come with ideas and we all come (7:29) with, you know, the intent to represent our district.

But when we’re getting (7:33) these bills jammed down our throat and we’re trying to come, trying to make them (7:36) better, trying to do better things, and it’s being resisted out of just spite (7:40) sometimes. And also the theory that, you know, we don’t have it right and the (7:44) folks that worked on the bills have it wrong. It’s a bad way to govern.

But that (7:47) Senate bill is coming over. I think it’s vastly improved and I’m actually pretty (7:52) confident that if we tweak a few more things I’ll be able to vote for it. (7:55) Representative, any other pieces of legislation you’d like to mention while (7:59) we have you on the air today? Man, we travel TRW.

A lot of our bills got (8:04) killed on introduction. It’s pretty unfortunate. A couple of those bills (8:07) involved non-resident fees for state trails and stuff that doesn’t affect any (8:12) of our neighbors, any of our resident Wyoming folks, and get some funding into (8:16) our outdoor recreation space.

And those did not make the threshold of (8:19) the vote, which, you know, I don’t know if it was more of an attack on the (8:24) committee’s work or just the will of the body. They don’t like fees in (8:28) general. They don’t like when people have to pay for these.

They’d struggle to (8:31) understand the difference between a fee and a tax. But no, so a lot of the travel (8:35) stuff died. We got corner crossing.

It’s a great great bill for outdoors, you know, (8:39) men and women that are hiking, biking, hunting, and got that over to the Senate. (8:42) I think there’s gonna be some amendments coming there. But the other, the other, you (8:46) know, elephant in the room, Duke, is this check gate and and that’s been (8:50) progressing.

It really slowed down a lot of the work on the House side and the (8:54) public hearing for that is Tuesday, excuse me, this coming Thursday at 3 (8:58) o’clock. It’ll be on YouTube and that’ll be the public hearing of the the (9:02) committee assigned in the House to do our internal investigation into what (9:06) went wrong there. Obviously our, all parties are are innocent until, you know, (9:10) proven guilty.

So I want to see that work out. The Sheriff’s Open Investigation and (9:14) just a big, big black eye on the Wyoming State House. It’s been a, that’s been (9:18) occupying way too much of our time and it’s unfortunate that it happened.

It’s (9:23) unfortunate that it didn’t get handled differently internally and we find (9:27) ourselves at a public hearing on Thursday at 3 o’clock and it sounds like (9:30) we’re gonna adjourn. The House will adjourn to allow all of our members to (9:33) attend and to watch online. So I think it’ll be a lot of people will be paying (9:37) attention across Wyoming.

That’s Representative Andrew Byron, House (9:40) Sister 22 representative. Thank you so much. We appreciate the update.

Duke, (9:44) thanks so much. Yeah, we look forward to a post-legislative update when we get to (9:48) it. Absolutely.

We’ll, we’ll do that for sure. That’s Representative Andrew Byron (9:52) live from Cheyenne this morning. It’s all part of the weekday wake-up on SBI (9:55) Radio.