CHEYENNE, Wyo. — Both houses of the Wyoming Legislature on Tuesday began the process of working through a budget bill that calls for keeping state spending essentially flat over the next two years.
Rep. Rosie Berger, R-Big Horn, and Sen. Phil Nicholas, R-Laramie, are co-chairmen of the Legislature's Joint Appropriations Committee. They began presenting their committee's proposed $3.2-billion state funds budget for the two-year funding cycle that begins in July nearly simultaneously in their respective houses at each end of the state Capitol on Tuesday afternoon.
"There's still a lot of sunshine left in Wyoming, but it's necessary for us to be cautious," Berger told House members.
Taxes on natural gas production are a bulwark of the Wyoming state budget, and those prices have been falling fast in recent months.
Gov. Matt Mead based the budget he submitted to state lawmakers in December on projections that called for gas prices to average $4 per thousand cubic feet this year. However, prices have plummeted in recent months and currently stand at about $2.50 — a decline that promises to cost the state over $100 million.
The joint committee's proposed budget includes no money for state employee pay raises. It keeps spending intact for state agencies, but denied most of their special requests for extra cash. It would also require agency directors to come back next year with plans for spending cuts of 4 percent followed by another possible 4-percent cut the year after that.
Berger told House members that the state has about $1.4 billion in its rainy day fund. The committee's proposed budget calls for setting aside $150 million from that fund that Mead could access if necessary to keep the state solvent this year.
The committee budget calls for $908 million in state spending for the Wyoming Department of Health, the same amount the agency is receiving in the current two-year budget. The committee called for putting aside an additional $25 million for the department that the Legislature could release later.
Although neither house considered proposed amendments to the budget bill on Tuesday, debate in the Senate indicated that coming to grips with proposed cuts in the health department budget promises to be contentious. The House stopped short of considering the health department Tuesday and plans to consider it on Wednesday.
Mead had requested $967 in his most recent budget for the health department. The agency also faces the disappearance of $37 million in federal economic stimulus funding.
The appropriations committee voted to deny Mead's request for extra funding to allow the health department to cut waiting lists for citizens who need treatment for brain injuries of developmental disabilities.
Sen. Charles Scott, R-Casper, is chairman of the Senate Labor, Health and Social Services Committee. He warned the Senate against failing to fund assistance programs for families who have children with developmental disabilities.
Scott said he believes the state needs to help families take care of people with developmental disabilities. "In addition to the moral obligation of taking care of those individuals, what you are doing is you are creating an incentive to expand the number of abortions," he said.
Scott said he's on the abortion rights side of the issue, but said he doesn't believe the procedure should be common or encouraged. He said many conditions that lead children to be born with disabilities are found before they're born. He said the state needs to beware that by cutting funding it doesn't create an incentive for mothers to abort such children.
Nicholas responded that the health department will have flexibility to continue to fund programs as it looks to make budget cuts.
"It's not as though there's no, if you will, safety net," Nicholas said. He said people shouldn't get the idea that members of the appropriations committee turn a deaf ear to people's problems or don't care about them. "We do care," he said.
