Editor's note:
WyoFile partnered with KHOL 89.1 Jackson Hole Community Radio to produce this story.
In Wyoming’s wealthiest county, the median homeowner pays $6,312 each year in property tax, according to Teton County Assessor Mel Shinkle.
Come November, that number could be sliced in half, providing relief for owners like Becky Cloetta, a retired dentist who said she called off vacations to cover the taxes as they rose in recent years.
“We’re not playing a violin,” she said. “We still go to Smith’s and buy what we want to eat, but we’re lucky. Or, I should say, we worked hard.”
Retirees on fixed incomes and teachers thinking about their own retirement may move out of Wyoming if taxes remain high, she said.
Cloetta championed a citizen petition that garnered 30,251 signatures across the Cowboy State to put the proposed 50% cut on the general ballot. It marked the first time such grassroots organizing had been successful in 30 years. The initiative was spearheaded under the name BCR Initiatives by gubernatorial candidate Brent Bien, his former campaign manager Rich Weber and former Hot Springs County GOP Chair Cheryl Aguiar.
If enacted by voters, the change would cost the state between $92.6 million and $124.7 million annually, straining budgets for first responders and other essential services. The lower estimate doesn’t include local tax districts.
Some of the largest organizations in the state have teamed up to fight the proposal. Wyoming Realtors voted this week to join a coalition that already includes the Wyoming Education Association, Wyoming Hospital Association, Wyoming Association of Community College Trustees and Wyoming Taxpayers Association.
The groups say further property tax cuts will harm services that Wyoming communities depend on.
“I think in Wyoming, it is the first time we’ve really had this major organized effort against a ballot measure,” said Kim Amen, president of the Wyoming Education Association. “We’re just trying really hard to get the message out about the potential damage that this could do.”
Organizers said the group, called “Vote No on Prop 1,” has nearly $1 million in the bank and has spent about 20% so far. Campaign finance filings show the National Education Association contributed $405,000. The group’s first video ad warns of cuts to ambulances, schools and snow plows.
“I love tax breaks, but not this one,” says Mark Eisele of the King Ranch in Cheyenne.
There is no income restriction or age requirement for the 50% cut, which would apply to residential structures, but not land. Residents must have been in the state for at least a year and reside for more than six months of the year in Wyoming to qualify.
Gubernatorial frontrunner Eric Barlow, a Campbell County rancher and state senator, spoke out against the proposal at a campaign event in Jackson this week. “It will truly harm communities,” he told the crowd of a couple dozen.
On the support side, Wyoming’s Republican Party announced this week that it will back the ballot measure. Chairman Bryan Miller said: “Wyoming homeowners deserve meaningful, durable property-tax relief, and our party is prepared to help communicate the case for this initiative to voters across the state.”
In Teton County, the average tax paid is $11,705 per year. The gulf between that and the median shows how expensive some homes in the county have become.
Assessor Shinkle said the ballot measure would provide a reset button in a community where home valuations skyrocketed after a surge in rural homebuying that started during the 2020 pandemic.
“Most everyone has increased well over double [their tax burden] since COVID,” she said.
But that’s not the same story in the rest of the state. Other counties are already back to 2018 revenue levels because of other relief measures from the Wyoming Legislature, said Jerimiah Rieman, executive director of the Wyoming County Commissioners Association. That eliminates the need for an additional blanket cut, he said.
“The strain that is going to be most painful is around those special districts that rely almost exclusively on property taxes to provide for fire, ambulance, hospital,” he said. “You’re gonna see some bare-bones operations if we continue to cut in the way that we have been.”
Wyoming already has lower taxes than much of the country. State lawmakers approved a 50% exemption for homeowners who are 65 or older and have paid property taxes for 25 years. They also put a 4% cap on how much property taxes can increase each year.
Homeowners can already apply for a 25% exemption on the first $1 million of their home value, though they would need to choose between that and the new proposed reduction.
The state is one of several conservative states looking to further reduce property taxes this year.
Cloetta, the Teton County homeowner, said the campaign to support the tax cut is just getting started. Bien is still recovering from his failed bid for governor, but billboards for the ballot measure are starting to appear in other parts of the state, she said.
Filings show the BCR Initiatives group has raised and spent less than $5,000.
GROSSLY OVER LOOKED!!!!! The 50% property tax cut isn’t needed. WHY??? The 5-7 Wyoming counties that have been collecting too much property tax – and that includes Teton County – can lower their own property taxes by their County Commissioners simply lowering the mill levy on the various districts in their respective counties!!! The counties can make the needed adjustments themselves without the legislature getting involved and no ballot initiative. Unbelievably, no one in the legislature even brought this option forward. DAH!!!
The remedy the legislature has pursued and the ballot initiative both throw the small counties in Wyoming under the bus. Why should the small counties suffer because the larger counties are thriving and growing robustly – but that’s what happens when a ” one size fits all ” approach is taken.
Wyoming is in the energy business in a big way – coal, oil, natural gas, uranium, wind turbines and solar. It takes a lot of infra-structure to support our largest business and property tax revenue is essential to providing the infra structure. I estimate 587,000 citizens of Wyoming provide energy to about 40,000,000 out of state consumers of our energy. We historically have asked them to pay their fair share of the infra structure cost by leveling ad valorum and severance taxes on our exported energy. The result is that every person in Wyoming is subsidized between $2,00o to 2,500 per year by exported taxes; and, they are fair taxes – we just can’t afford to pay for all that infra structure ourselves. But when you cut the property taxes in Wyoming it leaves the counties and cities with less money to provide the infra structure, Wrong approach. Instead, we need to continue asking the out of state consumers or our energy to pay their fair share – 587,000 citizens of Wyoming just can’t afford the infra structure which they are benefiting from.
DO THE WYOMING COUNTY COMMISSIONERS EVEN KNOW THEY CAN LOWER THEIR OWN MILL LEVIES???? WAKE UP WYOMING!!!!
Property taxes SHOULD go down; no question. But the proposition as written isn’t fair. It’s not means-tested; it’s not capped; it gives no break to Wyoming small businesses or renters. It will impact our labor force and exacerbate the state’s “brain drain.” We should vote it down (there are currently other exemptions, as mentioned above) and propose a fairer tax reduction scheme.
Thank you for this balanced article. The bottom line for me is that scare tactics are being used by the groups who rely on public funds for their existence. Over 2 billion are collected in all manner of property taxes. This proposition may cut into that by 200 million, at most. If our elected and hired government workers can’t figure out how to prioritize their budgets to accommodate this small decrease in their budgets, then they should be replaced. We’d all like to buy a new car, build a porch, pave our driveways, or whatever. We don’t because we have to prioritize. So, too, should this expectation be applied to those we elect and pay with public funds.
The organization’s that are against the tax cuts for the average working people are using those taxpayers dollars to campaign against it! So this is how they are spending the money that they’re are fighting for—SHAMEFUL