Dalton Banks

Entering his first legislative session, you might forgive Rep.-elect Dalton Banks, R-Cowley, if he chose to take it slow. But Banks enters next month’s General Session with hopes of bringing multiple pieces of legislation to help school districts find bus drivers, give a boost to independent pharmacies and make it easier for landowners to mark their property as private.

The freshman will also have the privilege of serving on two separate committees: Agriculture, State and Public Lands and Water Resources, and Minerals, Business and Economic Development.

“It’s a full plate,” Banks said with a laugh in a Tuesday interview.

As part of his preparations for the session, Banks said he’s been working with multiple lawmakers, including House Speaker-elect Albert Sommers, R-Pinedale, Rep. John Winter, R-Thermopolis, and outgoing Rep. Jamie Flitner, R-Greybull, who he’s replacing in House District 26.

One of the bills Banks intends to sponsor, relating to pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), was a concept championed by Flitner. Benefit managers “haven’t been very friendly to smaller and local pharmacies” when they provide reimbursements for medications, Banks said. Independent pharmacists have complained that the payments they receive from PBMs on behalf of health insurance plans do not cover their costs. The legislation would make PBMs subject to additional state regulation that, under the proposal made last year, would require reimbursements that cover the pharmacies’ costs of acquiring the drug.

The intent is that “people who want to support our local pharmacies and buy medication there can do so instead of being forced to buy them from bigger companies such as CVS,” Banks said.

A similar proposal easily cleared the Senate last year but died in the House. It faced stiff opposition from pharmacy benefit managers, who contended the proposal would “substantially” increase drug costs. However, in Banks’ view, the PBMs “haven’t presented numbers that back that up,” concluding that “we’ll see what we can do.”

Another bill he’s sponsoring is a “painted fence posts no trespassing law.” Modeled off Montana law, Banks said it would make it easier for property owners — particularly bigger ranches — to post their land as off-limits to trespassers. 

Instead of having to put up a slew of no trespassing signs that may get riddled with bullets, Banks’ proposal would allow landowners to simply paint their fence posts with a bright fluorescent color to signal it’s private property.

“This was something that was actually requested by a lot of property owners in the Big Horn Basin,” Banks said.

With school districts struggling to find drivers for their buses, he’s also been working on a way to make it easier for people to obtain the commercial driver’s licenses needed for the job. The federal government has implemented more stringent training requirements for CDLs and Banks recently told the Lovell Chronicle he’s looking for ways to ease that burden.

Like his colleagues, the incoming lawmaker also wants to address rising property taxes, which he described as something “that’s on everybody’s mind in this area.”

“I’m really going to work on that issue, and [on] getting our property taxes under control,” he said.

The Legislature is expected to consider a variety of ways to provide relief. Banks indicated he’s open to considering a cap on how much a resident’s assessed property value can rise in a given year or basing taxes on what the owner originally paid for the property, referred to as an acquisition-based approach.

Whatever the method, “we got to tackle that issue,” he said, “because our citizens are hurting because of the strangling property taxes we’re seeing.”

House District 26 encompasses parts of both Park and Big Horn counties, including portions of rural areas north and east of Powell, plus Garland, Frannie, Deaver, Cowley, Byron, Lovell, Greybull and Shell. The General Session begins Jan. 10.