Wyoming lawmakers square off with business council over government’s role in economic development

Competing visions for the state’s economic future clashed Thursday as the Wyoming Business Council presented its budget proposal to the Wyoming Legislature’s Joint Appropriations Committee in Cheyenne. 

While the council has functioned as Wyoming’s statewide economic development agency since its creation in 1998, some lawmakers argue that government shouldn’t be involved. Meanwhile, the business council is warning that stagnant job and wage growth, as well as low workforce availability, are fueling long-term economic decline in Wyoming. 

“The markers of GDP, the markers of wages, the markers of [the] number of job opportunities, the outmigration of our youth and the widening gap between our population and our workforce all spell that our economy is not where we want it to be,” Business Council CEO Josh Dorrell told lawmakers Thursday. 

The Appropriations Committee met in Cheyenne last week for the first round of budget hearings ahead of the 2026 legislative session. After one lawmaker expressed interest in eliminating the business council, Thursday’s hearing put the agency squarely in the hot seat.  

“The business council today is a place where we understand the problem that we have better than ever,” Dorrell told lawmakers. “We understand the resources that we have or don’t have better than ever. And we understand that we’ve built a foundation that can be utilized as a way to change the economy.”

Part of advancing Wyoming’s economy, Dorrell said, will require policy changes, including reforming the agency’s Business Ready Community grant and loan program. It’s also going to require more funding, he said. 

The council is asking lawmakers for about $112 million, while Gov. Mark Gordon’s recommendation for the agency is about half of that amount at nearly $55 million. However, Dorrell said, both of those figures would ultimately come up short, particularly when it comes to helping communities meet infrastructure needs, like extending water and sewer to business parks. 

“I thank you for giving us the courtesy of truth,” Senate Appropriations Chairman Tim Salazar, R-Riverton, said. “For you to be successful, you believe your budget should be somewhere over a billion, correct?”

“Mr. Chairman, yes,” Dorrell said. 

Gordon’s recommendation

House Appropriations Committee Chairman John Bear, R-Gillette, asked Dorrell about the discrepancy between the agency’s request and the governor’s recommendation. 

“I don’t see any other agencies where he’s denying half of the requests,” Bear said. “So that’s a pretty significant difference from your view and his.”

Dorrell confirmed that he told the governor neither budget was sufficient, but he also told Bear that Gordon has an entire state budget to consider and balance in his recommendations.

Lawmakers did not ask Gordon last Monday when he testified about the discrepancy, but in a Friday press release, the governor’s office reiterated that his budget recommendations are just that, because lawmakers are statutorily the state’s appropriators. 

“The Joint Appropriations Committee and the Legislature have often restored cuts to agency requests when they felt the increases were needed,” the press release said. “Governor Gordon’s budget has close to half a billion dollars on the table for the Legislature to make such decisions, including putting more into savings to benefit future generations.” 

Gordon also pointed to his budget message, where he called for “maintaining low tax burdens and pursuing legal frameworks that attract new investment to broaden Wyoming’s economic base.” 

Council’s request

Ahead of last week’s hearings, the Wyoming Freedom Caucus — a group of Republicans who control the House — pledged to cut the budget, citing “pre-pandemic spending levels” as a general target. 

Dorrell told the committee Thursday that his agency’s budget request of almost $112 million “is actually less than the one that was submitted in 2019.”

Even so, several members of the committee expressed skepticism about funding the agency at all. Bear, for example, said he sees numerous issues with governments like Wyoming intervening to compete with other states in attracting private businesses.

“I understand that’s your responsibility … to try to compete with other states, make us competitive in that arena. But prior to that, you know, we’re 250 years old this next year. And prior to that, we went 150 years without government intervening in private sector business,” Bear said. 

“Don’t you agree that we have a great history in this country of private sector production?” Bear asked Dorrell. 

“Of course, I would agree with that,” Dorrell said. “And I might add that, you know, one of the things that we’re working to do is solve the problem that we have in front of us.” 

“I don’t get to go back 100 years to when states didn’t compete,” Dorrell said. “I get to solve the problem I have today. And the problem that we have today is that our outmigration of our youth and people who are born in this state is greater than any other state in the nation.”

Between 60% to 70% of Wyoming-born residents permanently leave the state by the time they are 30, according to a 2024 analysis prepared for the business council by Harvard Kennedy School researchers. 

Rep. Ken Pendergraft, R-Sheridan, however, said he did “some research” and “found a couple of sources, including the U.S. Census Bureau that dispute” the outmigration findings that he hears from the business council “and others.”

“I just say that because I’m really interested in the truth,” Pendergraft said. 

Dorrell said while he hoped to be wrong about Wyoming’s outmigration, “our population and the demographics of our population would say that we’re probably right on.” 

Philosophical differences 

Pendergraft also said one of the criticisms he hears of the business council is “picking winners and losers,” and pointed to a metal fabricator in Sheridan County that was awarded a grant by the council, while there are other entities in the community that do the same work. 

The council only considers awarding grants to those who apply, Dorrell said, asking that Pendergraft provide him with “the names of those organizations that might be interested in this.”

Pendergraft also said he disputed the results of a statewide poll the business council completed earlier this year.

In September, the Tarrance Group, a Virginia-based Republican strategic research and polling firm, surveyed 514 registered voters in Wyoming about economic conditions, development priorities and community growth. 

“The results reveal a strong mandate for proactive, community-led growth and a clear consensus on the urgent need to retain our young people to build resilient communities,” according to an October press release from the council.

“I reject those results personally,” Pendergraft said, adding that “there were problems with how it was phrased.” 

Pendergraft also pushed back on the need for a business council at all. “How do you answer those that say it is not the role of government to build infrastructure?” he asked. “Leave that to the free market. Leave that to the businesses to develop that. Leave that to the consumers that want those things. How do you respond?”

It goes back to the problem of economic decline, Dorrell said, and there are plenty of examples across the state that indicate that the state’s minimal “investment in infrastructure” is working against Wyoming. 

“The idea that the state or that the community shouldn’t pay for infrastructure, that experiment is sort of running right now, and what it’s saying is that people are leaving and what it’s saying is our economy is in decline,” Dorrell said. 

Budget hearings will continue through this week before resuming Jan. 5. The committee is not expected to take any formal action on the budget bill until the week of Jan. 12.