CASPER —In a finishing blow to one of this legislative session’s more ambitious property tax relief proposals, the House voted 37- 25 last week to toss out a constitutional amendment that would have given Wyoming more freedom to change assessment rates for residences. 

As property taxes become increasingly burdensome for Wyoming homeowners — especially those on fixed incomes — there’s broad support among lawmakers to change how the state taxes residential property. 

Exactly what that change should look like, though, has proven more divisive. 

A bloc of representatives aligned with the Wyoming Freedom Caucus voted Wednesday to oppose House Joint Resolution 2, feeling the proposed constitutional amendment wouldn’t have gone far enough for property tax reform. 

The resolution, sponsored by House Speaker Albert Sommers (R-Pinedale), called for residential property to be designated as its own tax class, so that the state could tweak the assessment rate for homes without affecting the revenue it draws from other kinds of land. 

Right now, the Wyoming Constitution requires residential, agricultural and commercial property to be assessed at the same rate. 

Assessment rates are what determine how homes’ market values translate to their assessed values. The rate for residential, agricultural and commercial lands in Wyoming is 9.5%. (So if your house and a convenience store across the street were both appraised for $250,000, their assessment values would both be $23,750.) 

The constitution also requires the collective assessment rate for residential, agricultural and commercial property to be within four percentage points of the assessment rate for industrial land. 

That’s meant to keep tax rates relatively equal among those four kinds of property. 

There’s also mineral property, which is taxed at 100% of its market value. 

Under the constitutional amendment, future lawmakers could have dropped the residential property assessment rate of 7%, for example, but kept commercial and agricultural property assessed at a rate of 9.5%. 

The proposed constitutional amendment would have also let the state create up to two additional subclasses under residential property, said Rep. Steve Harshman (R-Casper). One would have been specifically for owner-occupied residences, and the other up to the discretion of future lawmakers. 

The resolution wouldn’t have automatically changed any laws. Had it made it through the Legislature, the constitutional amendment would have gone on the ballot in the next election. If approved by voters, then the amendment would have officially been adopted. 

Even within the statehouse, constitutional amendments face higher legislative hurdles than other kinds of bills. Unlike the typical majority vote needed to pass legislation during a general session, a constitutional amendment can only move forward if at least two-thirds of the legislative body supports it. 

House Joint Resolution 2 nearly met that threshold. 

The Freedom Caucus decided to oppose it after a third reading amendment brought by Rep. Tony Locke (R-Casper), which would have added language allowing the Legislature to limit annual increases on residential property assessment values, failed 29-33, said Rep. John Bear, a Gillette Republican and the caucus’ chairman. 

“Instead of taking care of the taxpayers, those people who voted against the amendment and for the bill put up some window dressing,” Bear said. 

Generally speaking, caps on assessment increases work like this: Say the statehouse voted to cap residential property assessments at 3% per year. That means that if your house is assessed at $45,000 this year, its assessed value next year could be no more than $46,350. 

Some lawmakers who spoke in opposition of the proposed changes on Wednesday voiced concerns about government overreach. Others just thought the amendment would be trying to do too much at once. 

“Separating residential is probably a hard enough lift,” Harshman said while speaking against Locke’s amendment. 

Constitutional amendments are difficult and time-intensive to adopt, and the Freedom Caucus didn’t feel it was worth backing a resolution that didn’t include Locke’s changes. 

“It’s a heavy lift,” said Bear. “There’s no sense in changing things that don’t provide relief to the people.” 

Many of the same lawmakers also voted against a bill to amend the state property tax deferral program, which allows counties to transfer a portion of the property taxes owed by qualifying residents into liens on those homeowners properties. That debt is paid off at a later date — like when the owners sell their home, for example. 

It hasn’t been very popular among Wyoming homeowners and is currently only available in Teton County. 

House Bill 121, sponsored by Rep. Martha Lawley (R-Worland), would introduce a number of structural changes to the program, including rehousing it under the Wyoming Department of Revenue. 

The Wyoming Freedom Caucus doesn’t take issue with the bill so much as the program itself — it “does not incentivize government to reduce its spending and then reduce taxes on residential property,” Bear said Saturday in a text. 

The bill passed its third reading in the House earlier this month by a 42-20 vote. It’s since been introduced in the Senate, and has been assigned to the chamber’s revenue committee for further review. 

Lawmakers filed more than a dozen bills this session aimed at residential property relief. The majority of them have already died, either because they were voted down by lawmakers or because they missed key legislative deadlines. 

Of the handful still making their way through the statehouse, many have been much less divisive than House Resolution 2. 

One bill that would expand eligibility for Wyoming’s state and county property tax refund programs cleared its third reading in the House with unanimous support from lawmakers. 

A bill sponsored by Rep. Mark Jennings (R-Sheridan), that would give the Department of Revenue $50,000 to commission a report on what it would take for Wyoming to switch over to the so-called “acquisition” model of assessing property taxes, passed its third reading in the House by a 58-2 vote.