The Day That The Lights Went Out In The Capitol

It's rare that we see new things happen at the Capitol, but Friday brought a surprise when the lights went out in the building around 2 p.m. as the House was about to gavel-in to session. Absent a sound system, web stream, or lights, Speaker Albert Sommers decided to continue debate on the third reading of the House version of the budget and we are glad he did. More on why in a minute, for now, here are three big things you need to know this week.

• Property Tax and PACE bring Unity To The House
• Budget Week Is Over For Now
• Deadlines Make a Difference

Property Tax and PACE Bring Unity To The House

An old boss of mine used to say, “Tom, it takes all kinds of people to make the world go ‘round,” whenever someone did something we didn’t understand. If there is one thing the House of Representatives has this year it is reflective of the “all kinds,” theory. That said, there were two issues that everyone in the House agreed upon, (or darn close to it) this week that will be of interest to Wyoming’s older adults.

The first was the House’s unanimous vote on Thursday to increase the eligibility of the Property Tax Refund Program. As a reminder, this is the program that would allow folks to make up to 125% of the state’s or county’s median income and request up to a 90% refund on last year’s property tax, depending on your income. Clearly, the House has picked a horse in the property tax derby and it is one AARP Wyoming also prefers as it gets the most relief to the people that need it and quickly. The Senate is still working on a few different options for property tax relief, some more contentious than others, including a measure that would drop the state’s tax rate to 8.5% for a couple years, but brings out other questions such as will the counties, and educational institutions be backfilled for their loss of revenue? More on that as it develops.

The second measure that was nearly unanimously approved (60-1 with Rep. Ocean Andrew voting in the minority) in the House was a budget request by Cheyenne House members Dan Zwoniter and Landon Brown to study and poll communities in the state as to their interest in running PACE programs. If you are not familiar, PACE stands for the Program of All-Inclusive Care For The Elderly and has been around nationwide for a number of years. Cheyenne was the only community in Wyoming to have a PACE program, until it was shut down due to state budget issues in 2021. 

The program provides comprehensive medical and social services to those who have qualified as needing nursing homes, but still want to live at home. In short, there are a lot of models for PACE, but the Cheyenne model held that folks lived at home, were brought to PACE’s facility in downtown Cheyenne where they got meals, medical care, and just plain had fun. Then, they went home. About five years ago I was asked to produce a video on the Cheyenne facility. Check it out here if you are curious. 

These facilities work well because they save state dollars by keeping older adults in the home, out of hospitals, and nursing homes. The State Senate also approved the budget amendment (18-13), which means as long as the Governor doesn’t redline the expenditure, the Department of Health will ask the state’s health care facilities and hospitals if they think they are right to run a PACE program in their communities.

Budget Week Is Over… For now…
This week was dominated by debate on the State’s Supplemental Budget. Each biennium, the Governor proposes a state budget, and in odd numbered years, there is a supplemental budget to address changes in state’s needs the standard budget doesn’t address.

The processes for each budget are very similar. The Joint Appropriations Committee marks up the Governor’s proposed budget and presents it to the Legislature in whole. From there, each chamber takes mirror bills (the same budget) and starts to add or subtract dollars as it sees fit. This means hundreds of amendments brought by individual lawmakers are voted on by the House or Senate as a whole. By the third reading of the budget, the Senate and House have individual budget bills. 

If a budget amendment appears in both bills, it is safe. If the House passes a budget amendment, but the Senate doesn’t (and vice versa), that expenditure goes into a committee of House and Senate Appropriators who debate the offending amendments and hammer out one budget, which has to go back before each chamber for another vote. 

For those interested - here is the Senate’s budget bill and that of the House. Click on the amendments to check out how many proposals for or against funding they offer. This year home services seem to be in good shape with neither chamber showing much interest in cuts to those programs. 

Deadlines make a difference
We have reached a point in the session where we start to see bills fall by the wayside after fighting a battle with the calendar. On Wednesday the deadline for bills to be sent to committees or perish came and went and took 25 House bills and six Senate bills (fewer Senators mean fewer bills) with it. Friday, another deadline - one for bills to be passed out of a committee - claimed a number of other measures. The next deadline is Monday when bills have to have been heard at least once in their respective Houses of Origin.

Next week, we will see bills start to cross over from the House to the Senate. In other words bills approved by the House now go to the Senate and vice versa. I notice it does make pitching a bill a little tougher in the second chamber when the bill’s primary sponsor is across the hall. The other good news is we really start to narrow bills being considered and we as membership organizations really get to know what we are dealing with.

If you have anything on the billtracker you wish to testify on, let me know. We would be thrilled to bring you up to speed and walk you through the process. 

Thanks for all you do.
Tom Lacock
Associate State Director
AARP Wyoming