The Park County commissioners are budgeting conservatively this year with the potential of a 50% property tax reduction looming, but commissioners made a point to ensure employees received a cost of living increase and gave managers the flexibility to provide some more merit based raises as well. 

Commissioners also agreed to cover the increase in health and insurance premiums by taking money out of a health and wellness fund. 

The salary adjustments — a 50 cent cost of living increase and two steps — will take effect Aug. 9. The two steps can be used by managers to give merit-based raises at their discretion.

In total, the county is set to spend 39.75 million for fiscal year 2027, up from $37.6 million last year. The budget is being balanced by using just under $8 million in cash carryover funds.  

The county will spend $415,000 to make good the pay increases. 

“We thought we were going to be in dire straits,” Chair Scott Steward said. “It turned out it worked out OK.”

The commissioners also largely kept special funding request disbursements the same as last year. 

After a public hearing Monday night with no comment, commissioners unanimously approved the 2026-2027 budget Tuesday morning. 

One source of revenue that helped for a more positive budget was in receiving roughly $600,000 more ($3.46 million) than expected from the federal government as part of Payments in Lieu of Taxes, in which the government reimburses counties for having large amounts of federal land, such as national forest and BLM lands. 

Commissioner Lloyd Thiel noted the increase was due to the work of the Wyoming County Commissioners Association working with the federal government to increase the payments to all the counties with large tracts of federal land. 

Commissioner Dossie Overfield said for many years PILT payments stayed a little over $1 million until the recent uptick. 

Those funds are added to the general reserve, which rose to more than $18 million at the end of FY26. 

The county received $10.4 million in revenue from its 12 mills of property taxes on a total valuation of $870 million after property tax reductions. That’s up slightly from last year, when the county received $10.2 million. Other revenues make up the bulk of the total revenue, including more than $5 million projected in sales tax, as well as numerous taxes and fees such as the county auto fee (projected $1.6 million revenue) and special fuel tax ($900,000). 

The county will be expending some of its funds on capital projects, including HVAC upgrades for the Cody Law Enforcement Center and upgrades to communications equipment for the sheriff’s office dispatch in Cody. 

Undersheriff Andy Varian said Monday night it was time to make the upgrade as technology continues to advance. 

The largest expenses come from, as usual, the road and bridge department and county sheriff’s office (and detention) which each account for more than $8 million in expenses. 

The full budget is available for review at parkcounty-wy.gov.