Mike Yin

CHEYENNE — Despite approval in the Senate, the Wyoming House of Representatives narrowly shot down a proposal Tuesday to restore Gov. Mark Gordon’s initial proposed $11.1 billion budget to fund the state over the next two years.

Instead, representatives voted to maintain the slimmed-down 2027-28 biennium budget, which is $314.4 million less than Gordon’s budget, during the start of second reading of its version.

Cuts to the budget were made throughout December and January by the Joint Appropriations Committee ahead of the budget session, and the cuts were largely offset by the approval of $337.1 million for capital construction projects in a separate bill.

House of Representatives

As the Senate chose to reject the work of the JAC, the two chambers will work very different budget proposals in the coming days. On Tuesday, the House discussed an immense slate of amendments to the JAC-approved budget.

“The whole idea is about slowing the growth of government, and that’s what the budget that we brought here to your body does,” said Rep. John Bear, R-Gillette, co-chair of the JAC and former chairman of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus.

Bear referred to himself as a “paycheck legislator,” in contrast to a “welfare check legislator.” “I’m saying I want government to grow no faster than your paycheck grows. That’s a paycheck Legislature,” he said. 

Rep. Mike Yin, D-Jackson, who proposed the initial amendment, criticized the JAC, saying it made cuts and restored some of them, like funds for the Indian Health Services, creating a distrust in the process of how the committee approached the biennial budget.

“If I can’t trust the chair of JAC with that one bit, how am I going to trust them on the whole budget markup?” he said.

He suggested taking a “scalpel” to the budget as a whole Legislature, rather than starting with a product the JAC has taken a “knife” to and “stabbed” things like the University of Wyoming and the Wyoming Business Council.

Rep. Tony Locke, R-Casper, criticized this approach, saying lawmakers should avoid the name calling.

Speaker of the House Rep. Chip Neiman, R-Hulett, then called a vote on the amendment at hand, which failed on a tally of 26-35.

Earlier in the discussion, Rep. Lee Filer, R-Cheyenne, had presented the chamber with estimated calculations of how long the lawmakers could remain working into the night.

He said that if the House voted no on the return to Gordon’s budget and then proceeded to debate the remaining 120 amendments at an average of 10 minutes per amendment, it would take 20 hours, or until about 6:30 or 7 o’clock Wednesday morning. However, if the amendment were adopted, it would reduce that time by about 13.5 hours.

Filer’s estimations proved to be a little generous to the efficiency of the body, as it had made its way though proposed amendments at a rate of around 4.7 per hour as of publication time.

Senate

On the opposite end of the Capitol, Sen. Ogden Driskill, R-Devils Tower, proposed a second-reading budget amendment Tuesday morning to restore the budget back to the governor’s recommendation — before it was cut by the Joint Appropriations Committee. Driskill’s amendment was approved in a 20-11 vote.

“This amendment is the big, beautiful amendment,” Driskill said, adding that his fellow senators would be able to bring additional amendments to the budget bill on third reading, currently scheduled for Thursday. 

The Senate was done with its second-reading budget amendments by noon.

Sen. Lynn Hutchings, R-Cheyenne, urged caution before the Senate took up Driskill’s amendment, saying that anything the Senate does must be accepted by the House.

“I appreciate what the (JAC) did, and I like what they did,” Hutchings said. “I just wanted the body to know that, yes, we have the right to go in and make this budget whatever we want. But we have to remember that the other side has to agree.”

During the 2025 general session, the House and the Senate failed to agree on a supplemental budget bill, Hutchings recalled.

“I’m a little concerned that may happen this year,” she said.

Last year, Senate President Bo Biteman, R-Ranchester, said the purpose of the supplemental budget was to respond to emergency shortfalls in the biennium budget, and that the 2025-26 biennium budget provided the necessary funding to run the state. When the Senate failed to approve a supplemental budget bill, it did so knowing biennium budget discussions were only “eight months away.”

Sen. Tara Nethercott, R-Cheyenne, said she supported restoring the biennium budget to Gordon’s recommendation, as she has heard from her constituents that the budget cuts proposed by the JAC were “punitive and retaliatory.”

“They have said ‘Fund our future.’ And they said, ‘Fund our only state university,” Nethercott said. 

Further, the governor’s budget recommendation is “conservative” and balanced, she said.

Both budget bills will be debated on third reading in their respective chambers before crossing over, and ultimately before all non-mirror amendments are considered by a joint conference committee.

House delays

When the House declined a return to the governor’s initial proposed budget, it then moved on to discussing the 121 other proposed amendments to the JAC-approved budget.

After around five-and-a-half hours of discussion throughout Tuesday afternoon and evening, the House had worked through 23 of those proposals, approving just three.

When the House approached its 20th amendment to discuss, Rep. Art Washut, R-Casper, said the body had reached “a historic moment in the legacy of the 68th Legislature.”

“There’s only 100 amendments left. I think it calls for a rousing chorus of the House choir of ‘100 bottles of beer on the wall,’” he joked.

The three amendments approved at the time of publication were to the Department of Agriculture, the Attorney General’s Office and the Department of Environmental Quality. The first provides a boost to the Wyoming State Fair under the Department of Agriculture. This amendment increases the department’s General Fund appropriation by $295,938 and authorizes the hiring of two additional full-time employees. This expands upon the department’s baseline general fund budget of $32,711,224.

The second adjusts the budget for criminal investigations within the Attorney General’s Office. 

This amendment deletes a previous second-reading amendment and introduces a specific legislative contingency that the appropriation for this purpose shall not be effective if 2026 Senate File 85 is enacted into law. 

That bill, known as the RAVEN Act, creates a dedicated state account to provide stable funding for the Internet Crimes Against Children task force.

The third and final amendment approved at the time of publication increases resources for environmental oversight. 

Lawmakers moved to bolster the DEQ’s air quality program by increasing “other funds” by $500,000 from the special revenue fund. This adjustment provides the department with more specialized capital to manage air quality initiatives throughout the state.

While the House was taking its 20-minute dinner break, Yin told the WTE he forecasts a 75% chance the body would continue discussing amendments beyond midnight, and Bear said in a text message that lawmakers must work through the remaining amendments unless they are pulled by their sponsor.