The Wyoming Highway Patrol offset a 2026 budget overrun by limiting mileage and overtime, according to the Wyoming Department of Transportation.
The department’s spokesperson, Doug McGee, noted that the agency “operates on a balanced budget and would not carry over a negative balance.” The highway patrol’s 2025-2026 budget biennium ended in September.
“It’s worth noting that the anticipated overrun was caught early enough that the actual shortfall did not reach an unmanageable level,” McGee said via email.
In 2025, the Wyoming Department of Transportation restricted the highway patrol’s overtime hours after staff found that the agency had overspent its funds, the Wyoming Tribune Eagle reported. The agency had roughly $3.2 million budgeted for overtime in 2025 and 2026. But by December 2025, it had spent nearly $4.9 million, though the biennium continued through September 2026.
Former Wyoming Highway Patrol Col. Tim Cameron, who retired in March and was replaced last month by Col. KC Ramsey, attributed the overspending to fewer vacancies and increased wages, the Wyoming Tribune Eagle reported.
The transportation department imposed mileage and overtime limits on the Wyoming Highway Patrol as well as the Ports of Entry program to offset the overrun, according to McGee.
As of Oct. 1, the highway patrol is on a new budget for fiscal year 2027. The patrol’s new biennium budget is $93 million, a $13.6 million increase from the last biennium budget, according to McGee. That increase is meant to cover Legislature-approved salary boosts and internal reorganization — changes in staffing structure to facilitate “more boots-on-the-ground supervisor availability” and tweaks to district boundaries aimed at improving response times, McGee said.
The transportation department also increased the highway patrol’s budget by roughly $4 million to cover operational budget increases like training costs and vehicle use, as well as one-time purchases of equipment like car and body cameras and vehicle radars.
“We are forcing them to ensure that they can stay within their budget,” Wyoming Department of Transportation Director Darin Westby told lawmakers at a meeting last week. That includes continuing to cap the number of miles troopers drive.
“At the end of the day, we have a budget. We got to stick with it. And if we have to stay within x number of miles, we have to stay within x number of miles.”
The mileage limits have sometimes forced troopers to be stationary in medians. Staffing shortages and budget constraints have also contributed to gaps in Wyoming Highway Patrol coverage, according to local law enforcement. But when it comes to major incidents, like the June shooting in Baggs, Westby said troopers will respond regardless of resource constraints.
“Overtime be darned,” he said. “We have a mission to uphold and we’re going to do that. We’ll take care of it on the back end.”
