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.
Rather than being yet another voice one side or the other, here’s some info to chew on. Dept. of Audit has an excel file you can download and open using google sheets app or google drive that provides rankings, graphs and excellent financial data on all ~800 Wyoming counties/cities/towns/special districts so you can see for yourself which are struggling and which are fat and happy. https://audit.wyo.gov/public-funds/reports Use the link *NEW* Local Government Dashboard FY2026. There’s $4B in unassigned reserves across these entities per DOA internal reports / cost of government reports / cost of gov 2025 updated pdf file. We need backfill for the struggling entities from reduced property tax revenues, whether Prop #1 passes or not. Let the current Legislature do this. We have $800M in the general fund this year, and more to come each year hereafter just from the investment income from our minerals trust. Interest rates aren’t going back to the ‘zero bound’ days. They’re going up. That means even more money will be pouring into the GF, plenty to provide the backfill needed. Wyo also had more revenue money coming in than total expenditures going out per the State Auditor’s ACFR report; $2.4B more in 2025, $3B more in 2024. Backfill money is readily available, much much more than is needed.
Awesome comments Pete!!! Finally glad to see discussion of the backfill money which is needed to stabilize the small counties which are struggling. Normally the legislature approves these backfilling funds.There’s one huge problem though. At the last legislative session there was about $23 million proposed for backfilling money for the small counties but the Joint Appropriations Committee which was composed almost entirely of Freedon Caucus house members – threw out the backfilling money which the small counties needed. Then they did something which is just plain pathetic – they approved $150 million for a new high school in Gillette and $14.5 million for a new bus barn in Gillette immediately after throwing the small counties under the bus. Since they were in control of the purse strings they took care of their own constituents all the while claiming cost cutting measures were needed to include the small counties. Virtually every member of the Freedom Caucus that did this to the small counties were voted out of office. The next legislative session will have moderate republicans in control with a lot more common sense. And, some of the former Freedom Caucus members are dropping out of the republican party and joining the Constitution Party along with Amy Bechtold.
When I talked to my sister-in-law in Massachusetts about property taxes, I was shocked by how much she pays. We don’t appreciate how much we get in services from our property taxes. The relief provided long-time property owners is very helpful and I sure don’t want to see cuts in services provided because of funding from property taxes!
Please, the media needs to be more careful in how this issue is reported. Many many people are still really confused and thinking property taxes are paid to and benefit the state, not their local county. I’ve heard arguments saying the state has millions in rainy day fund so they don’t need property taxes. Of course this analogy is comparing apples and oranges. Sometimes confusing reporting can confound this issue. Example: ‘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 state government does not pay for first responders and libraries. Please carefully make sure your coverage makes it clear property taxes support LOCAL county services, not state programs.
If the legislature would enact tougher taxing on not only all the data centers coming to the state but also raising the taxes on oil, gas, coal, wind and solar projects, the state would have plenty of money to keep all of the necessary services solvent, and then some. With the increase of population because of the building of data centers, not to mention the nuclear plant in Kemmerer, these entities should have been paying higher taxes long ago. Wake up, legislators! Take care of the people who have grown up and live here, who are having to put up with increased traffic, stressed services, and housing which will be empty when these workers decide to go back where they came from; the only reason they are here is because of the six figure paying jobs. This has been the “Wyoming” story for decades. Big oil closed the Amaco refinery in Casper, and changed the Frontier in Cheyenne. They do whatever they want, these communities be damned. Our properties are being devalued by the day, instead we’re being asked to pay higher and higher property taxes because why? We are expected to absorb all the cost of the extra services that are being required. It’s not our fault that the city and county electeds’ continue to annex, annex, annex without the financial support of the very entities that are causing these problems. It used to be if you improved your property in some, your taxes went up slightly. Not in this day and age. I just received my property tax bill. It went up 35% from last year. I’ve made no improvements on the house or the property. So what’s the deal, assessors? His is thus justified? I’ll be voting YES on Prop 1.
linda: What county are you living in??? Is it one of the highly impacted counties that are experiencing a lot of growth such as the counties along the I-80 corridor. Some of the richest counties in Wyoming have very significant cash reserves which they have gradually accumulated but not the 6-7 smallest counties. I live in Hot springs County which is one of the smallest counties and our economic situation is entirely different than the thriving counties. Example, the 4 counties in NW Wyoming have no large economic development projects in the entire Big Horn Basin. And then there’s Cheyenne with thousands of job openings for electricians, plumbers, construction workers – enough that man camps are required. Property values and taxes soar under these conditions. Your County Commissioners need to lower your mill levies – if you vote for the 50% property tax proposal the small counties are decimated; however, I agree you have a tax problem but there’s a better way to lower your taxes. Start by asking how much cash is your county holding in reserve ( rainy day fund ). If its in the tens of millions or over $100 million your county is probably collecting too much property tax. Please don’t throw the small counties under the bus. Get on the agenda for your next County commissioner’s meeting and ask them if they have considered lowering the mill levy in your county.
Property taxes ensure that no one ever truly owns their own home.
They are unfairly levied on many who will never use many of the services they reportedly pay for.
Oh but you do if you drive on a county road, enjoy a lower homeowner’s insurance because you have a functioning fire hydrant on your block, an ambulance that arrives when you fall off your ladder, or when a sheriff’s deputy arrives when someone trespasses on your home. Conservative values means supporting of government closes to your home is the best. The 50% cut across the whole state is government overreach. Get involved in your local county to have say on how your local taxes are spent. What works for Laramie County is not what is best for Carbon County, for instance.
Lee Ann your often repeated examples do not refute what I said.
Elderly couples or the widowed on fixed incomes across this country lose or are forced to sell their homes due to property taxes on a daily basis.
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
I thought the same thing! I have observed CWCC wasting millions of dollars on so many unnecessary projects (i.e. Sinks Canyon off campus food growing project, their shop has more equipment than most farmers do, a bike trail and club) it goes on and on with waste beyond a college education.