Joint Appropriations panel adopts slate of interim study topics, including wildfire funding and DD waivers

The Joint Appropriations Committee voted to adopt a slate of interim study topics Tuesday, approving by consent a set of items the panel will pursue during the 2025 interim.

The committee, co-chaired by Cochair Behr and Chairman Salazar, approved a motion to accept the topics as a consent agenda after hearing presentations from agency officials and stakeholder representatives. "I move that we, we vote just on all of this as a, as a consent agenda," the cochair said; a second was offered and the motion was carried by voice vote.

The adopted topics include: a study combining direct distribution to local governments with distribution of sales and use tax; a review of wildfire management funding and the duties of the state forester, including an after-action review of last summer’s fires; an examination of DD (developmental disability) waivers and provider payment rates; a holistic review of Wyoming Department of Transportation (YDOT) long-term funding and aeronautics and air-service capacity; review of University of Wyoming budgeting and board hearings; an inquiry into OBGYN access in parts of the state; and consideration of a committee to study election hand-count feasibility (the hand-count topic was noted as likely to be redirected to the Corporations Committee).

Representative Kojaer, presenting the House side’s items, asked the committee "to study how we can eliminate the budgetary item of direct distribution via working with our sales tax." He proposed combining that issue with a separate sales-and-use-tax distribution item already on the list.

On wildfire policy, Cochair Behr described the proposed interim topic as covering "future funding of wildfire management, state forester duties, and after action report," and said the study would examine fund transfers to entities that fight fires and review what failed and what could be improved following last summer. Senator Driscoll called the subject "very appropriate" given escalating fire costs.

Darren Westby, director of the Wyoming Department of Transportation, told the committee HB 33 would help the agency and encouraged a broader look at long-term sustainable funding, prioritization of projects and how the state ranks infrastructure investments. "We just need to continue down the conversation of long term sustainable funding," Westby said.

Devin Brubaker, airport director for Southwest Wyoming Regional Airport and president of the Wyoming Airports Coalition, urged study of air service and aeronautics funding, saying 9 communities in the state rely on scheduled air service and that the industry has changed since the legislature last examined it.

Stakeholders also urged committee attention to DD waiver rates. Jeff Gardner of Wyoming Community Service Providers said a cost study completed last September provides a road map to rebase rates and recommended focusing on the overall rate structure and labor-intensive services such as 24-hour residential support.

Other public testimony supporting topics included Ashley Hart Street of the Wyoming Association of Municipalities on the sales-and-use-tax/local distribution combination, Jonathan Downing of the Wyoming Petroleum Marketers Association and Kelly Little of the Associated General Contractors endorsing a broad, holistic YDOT funding review, and Jim McGagen of the Wyoming Stockgrowers Association and Richard Garrick of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition supporting the wildfire-management study. Mike Smith of the University of Wyoming highlighted Board of Trustees budget hearing dates and a 2015 management-audit report as background for possible UW budget work.

Committee staff summarized the agreed items and told members the list totaled five primary topics (after shifting some matters to other committees or to management audit), a workload the staff judged to be near the practical maximum for the interim. After discussion, the cochairs offered the topics for a single consent vote; the motion passed by voice vote and the cochairs said staff would prepare the formal memo for Management Council approval.

The committee did not take formal votes on legislation; its action was to approve the interim topics list and direct staff to transmit the slate to Management Council for final scheduling and assignment.

Next steps: staff will prepare and circulate the memo approving the interim topics to the Management Council and the committee will begin scheduling meetings, hearings and site visits tied to the adopted topics during the interim period.