A sweeping property tax bill was signed by Gov. Mark Gordon on March 4. It was one of the most debated policies to pass the Wyoming Legislature in the 2025 general session, which is scheduled to end on March 6 as of this story’s publishing.
The passage of SF 69 means single-family homeowners will see a 25% cut applied to the first $1 million of their home’s fair market value.
Lawmakers in the House and Senate heavily amended the policy as it traveled through the Capitol building, eventually removing funding for local governments that will lose property tax revenue because of the new law. The House alone attempted to pass 35 different amendments to the bill.
Property tax revenue in Wyoming goes to fund local municipalities, like special districts, cities, towns and conservation districts, including community services like firefighters and police. The revenue does not go to the state.
A big change to SF 69 came when it landed in the House for consideration. Representatives amended the bill so that after two years, the tax cut would’ve gone from 50% to 25% with no sunset date.
And the House version would’ve had the state partially reimburse counties for tax revenue losses, also known as a backfill, providing about $200 million over two years.
But even the addition of a backfill had some lawmakers perturbed about the possible impacts to local governments.
“I believe our county commissioners when they say that they’re going to have to cut services,” said Rep. Karlee Provenza (D-Laramie) while SF 69 was being amended in the House. “I believe my sheriff when he says that he’s already been unable to get mental health services for the next year, because he doesn’t have the money that he thinks that he will need to fund that. I’m going to vote no on this bill, because I think it’s the best thing for our communities, and I think that’s what they want. They were sold a lie: that property tax [relief] comes for free.”
Eventually, a Joint Conference Committee was appointed to straighten out differences between the House and Senate versions of SF 69. That process led to a rollback of many of the House’s changes, reducing the tax cut to 25% and striking any backfill funds.
“It was clear from the very beginning that the people of Wyoming wanted property tax relief,” said Sen. Tim Salazar (R-Riverton) during a JCC meeting. “This is probably one of the most important issues facing the state Legislature.”
In an interview with Wyoming Public Radio, Casper Mayor Ray Pacheco said the change from a 50% exemption to 25% is “a little bit better” for his city.
“We are … cautiously a little bit happy, because it stopped the 50%,” said Pacheco. “[But] we certainly wish there would have been a backfill within that, that could have been very beneficial to us.”
But even with those changes, he said he’s still worried about the bottom line for Casper and its nearly 60,000 residents.
“I can say for sure and go on record that it’s going to affect some of the services here in the city of Casper to some extent,” Pacheco said.
The fine print is that Casper will likely lose at least $1 million out of its nearly $16 million reserves. Those reserves amount to 120 days of operating funds for the city. The expected depletion of the reserves constitutes a roughly 6.25% reduction of its total savings.
City staff will have to determine exactly what services to cut in the coming month, Pacheco said, adding that he couldn’t yet comment on which would be most likely to face elimination until the city goes into budget sessions in the coming weeks.
“Our traditional conservative values is that we are fiscally responsible, fiscally conservative, and the idea that we have this vast amount of money to just spend into oblivion to be able to do that – I don’t think [that’s] fiduciary responsibility,” he said.
Part of the problem with the bill’s ascendancy, according to Pacheco, was what he called a lack of communication about the ramifications between the state and municipalities.
“The communication between legislators and the cities and the municipalities was really no conversation at all,” he said.
SF 69 is one of many property tax measures that were drafted in response to boosted property tax rates in some parts of the state.
It goes into effect immediately.
This reporting was made possible by a grant from the Corporation For Public Broadcasting, supporting state government coverage in the state. Wyoming Public Media and Jackson Hole Community Radio are partnering to cover state issues both on air and online.
