WYOMING — Wyoming’s two-year budget bill asks the executive branch to have each department prepare for the possibility of more budget cuts over the next several years if revenues continue to go down.
After a 20-day session, the 63rd Wyoming Legislature wrapped up last week. With state revenues decreasing, the amount of available funding for state operations over the next five years or more was a major issue on legislator’s minds.
Sen. Stan Cooper, R-Lincoln/Sublette/Sweetwater/Uinta said around $220 million of the $1.8 billion in the state’s rainy-day fund will be spent on Wyoming’s two-year budget. This amount does not include the extra money needed to make up for the shortage in K-12 funding. If that rate of spending continues, the rainy-day fund will be emptied in about five years.
Governor Matt Mead recommended spending $450 million of the rainy-day fund. Double the number the legislature had proposed.
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I was hoping we could have gotten more funding for K-12 education and local governments and we were somewhat successful, but not at the level that myself and many other legislators thought was appropriate. We spent entirely too much on capital construction in some instances that could have been phased out over several years.
-Stan Cooper, Sen. Lincoln/Sublette/Sweetwater/Uinta
