Property tax relief is on the ballot this year — kind of.

Wyoming voters are being asked to consider proposed Constitutional Amendment A, which would allow state lawmakers to tax residential properties at a different rate than commercial ones.

In theory, the amendment could eventually lead to a roughly 15% reduction on homeowners’ tax bills. But that would be completely dependent on what state lawmakers do: The amendment itself doesn’t deliver any tax relief, only giving the Legislature more flexibility in how they tax certain classes of property.

Support and opposition

Wyoming realtors have emerged as the biggest cheerleaders for the amendment, seeing it as the “first step” toward relief for homeowners.

“So many people are really struggling because of how much the taxes have gone up over the last few years,” said Laurie Urbigkit of the Wyoming Realtors Association.

A Wyoming Realtors-funded political action committee, 4 Wyoming, has spent nearly $544,000 promoting the tax — hitting mailboxes with glossy mailers and placing digital ads from YouTube to Cowboy State Daily.

Part of the push, Urbigkit explained in an interview, is because constitutional amendments are difficult to pass. For one thing, over 50% of voters must vote yes, as leaving the question blank has the same effect as voting no.

This particular amendment has also run into opposition, including from conservative groups in Park County.

Brent Bien of Cody — who supports a separate initiative that would halve residents’ property taxes — calls Amendment A “a very feeble attempt” to deliver relief.

For one thing, “all it does is give the Legislature another means by which they can tax,” Bien said. He’s wary that separating out residential properties might, say, make lawmakers more likely to raise taxes on commercial properties.

Further, the amendment would give the Legislature the ability to further carve out primary owner-occupied houses, which Bien worries could leave renters behind.

“I think we should all be very skeptical of government,” he said, “and we need to exercise all means possible, … whatever it takes, before we ever touch the Constitution.”

Urbigkit acknowledged that, when it comes to constitutional amendments, there’s always concern that “we’re messing with something maybe we ought not mess with.” But she believes the fears about Amendment A leading to higher taxes are a “red herring.”

It would take a majority vote of the Wyoming Legislature to hike the rates, and “I don’t believe it for a minute that we have a legislator in Wyoming that would vote to raise someone’s property taxes,” she said. “I just don’t believe that.”

Urbigkit also doesn’t think lawmakers would have the interest in raising rates on commercial properties, because that would hit small businesses.

“​​I think these are scare tactics and I don’t understand why, but I think we’re just ‘shooting at black helicopters,’” she said.

Limited potential

Park County Assessor Pat Meyer thinks that pulling residential property out of the “all others” class could help with the area’s skyrocketing tax rates, but he doesn’t support the amendment — in part because he worries that lawmakers might not extend relief to rental properties.

“We’re having a terrible time in all of Park County on huge increases in rent due to tax increases to the landlords,” Meyer said.

He recently saw a two-bedroom, one-bath house in Cody listed for $1,700 a month, which he called “just crazy” given what the average household earns.

Meyer also notes the amendment’s potential impact is limited, given how much property values and taxes have already risen in Park County.

Here’s how it would work:

Currently, minerals are taxed on 100% of their fair market value, industrial properties are taxed on 11.5% and all other property — including commercial and residential — are taxed on 9.5% of their value.

The Wyoming Constitution says the rate assessed on industrial properties can be no more than 40% higher than the lowest class of properties. So unless lawmakers lower the 11.5% industrial rate, the lowest they can go on any other class, residential, owner-occupied or otherwise, is about 8.22%.

For the average home in Park County — which sold for $479,000 last year — using an 8.22% assessment rate would have lowered this year’s property tax bill from roughly $3,115 to about $2,700. But that’s still well above the $1,750 that the average Park County homeowner paid in 2020, when the average home was selling for $268,750.

That’s one reason why Meyer prefers a rollback to, say, 2020 values. That would be followed by no more than 4% annual increases, under a cap that lawmakers passed last year. The only way to keep local governments from budgeting for and collecting the maximum of property taxes is “to limit how much they can go up,” the assessor said.

Local impact … or not

While the property tax structure is generally left in the hands of the Legislature, the revenue doesn’t go to Cheyenne, but to K-12 schools, counties, local municipalities, fire departments, hospitals, community colleges and other entities.

“A wholesale slash [of] property tax would decimate a lot of areas,” Urbigkit said. She also said that Wyoming’s property tax burden ranks as the 11th lowest in the country.

It is possible that lawmakers could use state dollars to backfill any tax revenue that local governments lose to cuts; that’s been a component of some tax relief measures that have been proposed and debated in recent years. Bien — who is particularly concerned about state spending and has called for an audit — notes that lawmakers put another $750 million into savings in the past session.

“It’s like, OK, when do the people get a break here?” he asked.

Lawmakers have passed some targeted relief, including doubling an exemption for veterans and expanding a property tax refund program for homeowners with more modest incomes. Last year, 1,253 veterans in Park County and 1,642 income-qualifying homeowners saved over $2.2 million on their taxes.

The Legislature passed a bill last session that would have cut most residents’ bills by roughly 25%, but that measure was vetoed by Gov. Mark Gordon.

Even if Amendment A passes, there’s no guarantee that the Legislature will take any action, with multiple lawmakers voicing concerns about the change. For example, Rep. Rachel Rodriguez-Williams (R-Cody) said she only voted for putting the amendment on the ballot because she felt voters should weigh in.

“I personally oppose the amendment because I think our property tax classes are wisely bunched together in order to keep things fair for mom and pop shops, renters, and homeowners alike,” she said in an email.

Rodriguez-Williams said her own belief is that, by limiting the growth of state spending, “property taxes can be eliminated as we know them today.”

(Dave Bonner contributed reporting)