CHEYENNE—It remains to be seen which Senate lawmakers will be responsible for negotiating a unified budget between the Wyoming Legislature’s two chambers. The House named its Joint Conference Committee members late Tuesday afternoon, while the Senate adjourned before doing so.
Whoever is chosen for the task has a $170 million gap to bridge between the House and Senate budget bills.
That’s how far apart the two chambers landed after their separate budget deliberations, according to a summary from the Wyoming Legislative Service Office. Don Richards, budget and fiscal administrator for the office, told lawmakers Monday the disparity between the two budgets is “not unusual.”
This session’s gap pales in comparison to 2024, when lawmakers faced a $1.1 billion budget chasm. But the two chambers must now square off on fundamental disagreements regarding the proper role of state government.
“The differences are not that big numerically, but they are rather stark philosophically,” Senate Minority Floor Leader Mike Gierau, D-Jackson, told WyoFile. “And it’s not just the [Wyoming] Business Council.”
The two budgets diverge on reductions to the state’s economic development agency, how deep to cut into the University of Wyoming’s block grant, how to pay for state employee pay raises and a number of budget footnotes, including one that would defund Wyoming Public Media.
The Senate and House ultimately adopted the same number of budget amendments — 37 each — despite the Senate having a total of 70 while the House had a whopping 247 proposed changes. That number in the House was a record, far surpassing proposed changes in any previous budget year since at least 2002, when the Legislative Service Office began keeping a digital record of amendments.
Speaker of the House Chip Neiman, R-Hulett, selected himself alongside Reps. Abby Angelos, R- Gillette, John Bear, R-Gillette, Scott Heiner, R-Green River and Ken Pendergraft, R-Sheridan, to the Joint Conference Committee. All five are members or allies of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, a group of Republicans that has taken the hardest line on the budget.
“I would say this $170 million difference, it’s probably as close as we’ve been in years,” Rep. Steve Harshman, R-Casper, said after Neiman announced his committee appointments. “And so I think the good conference committee on this thing, you guys will probably knock this out in five minutes. So, good luck to you and do a great job for Wyoming.”
Once the Senate announces its own negotiators, the 10 lawmakers will meet to start reconciling differences.
House makes some compromises
Debate on the budget is “always robust,” Rep. Lloyd Larsen, a Lander Republican who previously served on the House Appropriations Committee, told WyoFile before the lower chamber’s third reading of the budget bill.
“I would say that what makes this one unique is just the embedded positions on the budget and unwillingness to make any changes, particularly those that would save us money and prevent damage to the state,” he said, adding that he couldn’t “quite connect the dots” of the rationale behind some of these positions.
Larsen had expected the House to maintain its position during the third reading of the budget. While holding fast to many of the recommendations from the Joint Appropriations Committee, the state’s main budgeting arm, lawmakers in the lower chamber did give some slack.
Notably, the House adopted an amendment brought by Bear, the Gillette Republican, that would cut $20 million, rather than $40 million, of UW’s block grant.
The concession comes with some caveats. The amendment requires the university to use some of its state money to review its “organizational structure and staffing patterns,” identify positions and degree programs that could be eliminated and “recommend opportunities to further restrict any diversity, equity and inclusion” programming. The university eliminated its Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in 2024 on the heels of legislative-directed cuts and pressure.
What’s more, the school would be required to submit a $5 million cost savings and reinvestment plan to the governor and the JAC by December or risk losing another $20 million in block grant funding.
The House voted on Bear’s amendment right after members had adopted a similar one brought by Rep. Steve Harshman, R-Casper, that would have restored the full $40 million in block grant funding with similar caveats. The Casper lawmaker’s amendment didn’t require the university to further examine diversity, equity and inclusion programming.
“I’m trying to get a parachute for everybody so we can have a safe landing on this issue of our university,” Harshman said as he began explaining the intent of his amendment.
“If they can’t save $5 million bucks, we’ll take the full 40 as proposed by this side of the Legislature.”
But Bear, who was the first person to speak on Harshman’s amendment, made it clear that he didn’t believe it went far enough.
“This is a good amendment, but I’m going to ask for a no vote,” Bear said. “I need to let the body know that there’s a new amendment that is going to be very similar. We think it’s an improvement.” (Bear’s amendment deleted Harshman’s.)
The House had added $6 million outside of the block grant back into the budget during second reading to support UW athletics.
Lawmakers in the lower chamber made changes and restored funding in other areas as well. They voted, for example, in favor of Laramie Democrat Rep. Trey Sherwood’s amendment to boost salaries for some state employees. Gillette Republican Rep. Ken Clouston’s successful amendment restored the governor’s recommendation of about $10.3 million under the Department of Health to pay for a preschool external cost adjustment. Lawmakers also went for Cheyenne Republican Rep. Rob Geringer’s proposal to give some funding back to the Wyoming Business Council.
The House’s third-reading negotiations finally concluded around 7:45 p.m. Saturday.
Bear, who chairs the House Appropriations Committee and is a Wyoming Freedom Caucus member, told WyoFile he had expected budget negotiations to be difficult. He also foresaw the Senate restoring most of Gov. Mark Gordon’s budget recommendations.
But he didn’t foresee what he described as “the big-government Republicans and Democrats to bring so many amendments and filibuster” — words that largely reiterated a social media message that the Wyoming Freedom Caucus posted following the first day of second reading on the budget.
“If they successfully stop the budget from passing, they will put us into a constitutional crisis,” Bear said.
Lawmakers are constitutionally required this session to approve the state’s next two-year budget. If they fail to do so within the session’s timeframe, they will have to finish the work later during what’s called a special session. But after delays last week, the Legislature is currently back on track with budget negotiations.
House Minority Floor Leader Rep. Mike Yin, D-Jackson, pushed back on the characterization of amendments as a “filibuster.”
“The idea that fighting for the University of Wyoming in two different readings is a delay tactic is insulting,” Yin told WyoFile. “It is absolutely insulting.”
The volume of amendments, he said, was a result of budget issues that “people thought were very important for them to fight for.” There were also aspects of the budget, Yin added, “that didn’t make a lot of sense.”
The JAC’s budget, for example, didn’t grant spending authority to certain agencies and boards over internal funds, including Enterprise Technology Services and the Board of Barber Examiners, Yin pointed out.
“The budget was full of things like that,” Yin said. “And then the big parts were, you know, employee compensation, University of Wyoming and the Business Council. And the floor made movement on all three portions of that.”
Following the third-reading amendments, Bear noted that the House budget came out slightly below Gordon’s recommendation (a difference of about 1.7%, based on numbers from a Legislative Service Office summary), while the Senate mostly adopted the governor’s budget proposal.
“My hope is that the [Senate] will join limited government champions in the House to slow the growth of government,” Bear said in a text message.
The Senate side
After the upper chamber approved a second-reading amendment to largely restore the governor’s recommendations to the budget, Sen. Dan Laursen, R-Powell, brought several revisions that failed on third reading, including one to reduce UW’s budget by roughly $27.5 million.
“Personally, I wasn’t happy with the way they went,” Laursen told WyoFile when asked about the Senate’s budget deliberations.
Laursen, a Senate Appropriations Committee member, said he was “leaning more towards the House.” Looking ahead, Laursen said he was “excited” to see the two chambers negotiate.
“There’s not that much difference, but we’ll see,” Laursen said.
Amendments on third reading that succeeded included funding for UW’s rodeo and debate teams, as well as several increases to the Department of Health’s budget.
Senate leadership cancelled a Tuesday morning press meeting regarding the budget, citing the need to focus on preparing for a slate of nominees from the governor that will soon go through the Senate confirmation process. WyoFile was told Senate President Bo Biteman, R-Ranchester, and Senate Appropriations Chairman Tim Salazar, R-Riverton, were unavailable for comment.
Biteman and Salazar voted against the amendment in the Senate to largely restore the governor’s recommendations. Ahead of the vote, Salazar said he would not support it.
“We have a number of amendments today. I’m not going to stand up every time and give my view,” Salazar said. “Clearly, I see where this body is going, but I want to thank the Senate Appropriations Committee for their work. It was not in vain. We had the ability to voice our views on these issues.
“I knew from day one … that the budget bill was going to be changed,” he said. “I knew that. The question is, how much?”
Sen. Gierau told WyoFile “our leadership wants to be below the governor’s recommendation. And that’s a fair request. Our leadership is conservative.”
As for budget negotiations, Gierau said he’s confident the two chambers “can work through it.”
“I think it just depends on how you negotiate it,” he said, and what hills lawmakers are willing to die on. For one, Gierau said, there are senators who will not budge on UW’s funding.
“That’s how we got the big, beautiful amendment,” Gierau said. “Because there were 12 senators who said, ‘We don’t get UW funded fully, we’re not going to vote for the budget.’”
The governor
The budget process has “obviously been pretty wild and wooly for a bit,” Gordon told reporters at a Tuesday press conference, adding that he’s “generally fairly encouraged by what we’re seeing.”
“It was nice to have the Senate recognize how carefully we have built the budget together, and it’s been nice to sort of see the House kind of grudgingly come back to some of those things,” Gordon said.
In particular, the governor said he was “really pretty thrilled about employee compensation” in both budget bills.
Otherwise, Gordon flagged “the issue of water,” as an area where he wanted to see more lawmaker focus. Colorado River negotiations aren’t “getting more easily resolved,” Gordon said. Most other involved states “are pretty engaged with law firms,” he said. “So I think those things are pretty critical.”
Gordon also said he was disappointed with the House’s decision not to match federal with state dollars for a program aimed at supplementing food needs during the summer months when kids don’t have access to school lunches.
Known as SUN Bucks, the program could serve more than 32,000 eligible schoolchildren across Wyoming, according to The Laramie Reporter.
“There was a lot of conversation [today] about hunger in the state and how many people really are struggling,” Gordon said, referring to the First Lady Jennie Gordon and the Wyoming Hunger Initiative’s day of advocacy at the Capitol on Tuesday,
“Just to hear the stories about how much dependence on pantries has increased, and increased in some of our most vulnerable counties, like Niobrara and Goshen, Crook County. Those are really compelling stories. And we think about what that means for kids, and it really is frustrating.”
The Senate, meanwhile, voted to fund the program in its budget bill.
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