Amid rosier outlook, Wyoming's governor presents lean budget
A proposed two-year budget released Monday by Wyoming's governor outlines a continuation of frugal state government following steep cuts last year.
By News Channel NebraskaBy MEAD GRUVER
Associated Press
CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — A proposed two-year budget released Monday by Wyoming's governor outlines a continuation of frugal state government following steep cuts last year.
That is despite a somewhat rosier near-term economic outlook for the fossil-fuel-dependent state.
“My goal is we are prepared to endure future revenue challenges, as they are all forecast in the long term," Gov. Mark Gordon said at a news conference announcing his $2.3 billion budget proposal for state agencies.
State lawmakers will work from the governor's proposal heading into a legislative session this winter that will focus mainly on crafting the 2023-24 biennial budget.
The Republican governor's budget is $1 billion less than the 2021-22 budget approved by lawmakers in 2020 and quickly slashed by Gordon amid plummeting global oil prices and the emerging COVID-19 pandemic, both of which delivered a hit to state revenue.
Gordon reduced the current budget to $2.4 billion over the next several months. Many effects of those cuts, ranging from closing rest areas to laying off dozens of state employees, remain to be felt, Gordon said Monday.
“Government in Wyoming is much leaner than it was when I started. It’s much leaner than it has been for a generation,” Gordon said.
Some cuts, particularly at the University of Wyoming, can't be much deeper without fundamentally affecting government services, Gordon said.
Yet Gordon looks to boost pay to help retain state employees.
"We cannot attract candidates to even apply, let alone staff our state agencies, unless we can be more competitive in the marketplace," Gordon wrote to lawmakers in an introduction to his budget document.
State revenue over the next three years looks to be almost $600 million higher than was forecast earlier this year, the state Consensus Revenue Estimating Group forecasting agency said in an October report.
However, volatility in Wyoming's oil and natural gas industries, and the long-term decline in its coal industry, will continue, the report said.
Wyoming GOP votes to stop recognizing Cheney as a Republican
CASPER, Wyo. (AP) — The Wyoming Republican Party will no longer recognize Liz Cheney as a member of the GOP in its second formal rebuke for her criticism of former President Donald Trump.
The 31-29 vote Saturday in Buffalo, Wyoming, by the state party central committee followed votes by local GOP officials in about one-third of Wyoming's 23 counties to no longer recognize Cheney as a Republican.
In February, the Wyoming GOP central committee voted overwhelmingly to censure Cheney, Wyoming's lone U.S. representative, for voting to impeach Trump for his role in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
Cheney has described her vote to impeach Trump as an act of conscience in defense of the Constitution. Trump “incited the mob” and “lit the flame” of that day's events, Cheney said after the attack.
It's “laughable” for anybody to suggest Cheney isn't a “conservative Republican,” Cheney spokesman Jeremy Adler said by text message Monday.
“She is bound by her oath to the Constitution. Sadly a portion of the Wyoming GOP leadership has abandoned that fundamental principle and instead allowed themselves to be held hostage to the lies of a dangerous and irrational man,” Adler added.
Cheney is now facing at least four Republican opponents in the 2022 primary including Cheyenne attorney Harriet Hageman, whom Trump has endorsed. Hageman in a statement called the latest state GOP central committee vote “fitting,” the Casper Star-Tribune reported.
"Liz Cheney stopped recognizing what Wyomingites care about a long time ago. When she launched her war against President Trump, she completely broke with where we are as a state,” Hageman said.
In May, Republicans in Washington, D.C., removed Cheney from a top congressional GOP leadership position after she continued to criticize Trump's false claims that voter fraud cost him re-election.
Cheney had survived an earlier attempt to remove her as chairwoman of the House Republican Conference, a role that shapes GOP messaging in the chamber.