Wyoming Business Council urges tougher Business Ready Communities rules; committee trims proposed match to 10% amid rural concerns

Director Durrell, director of the Wyoming Business Council, told the Interim Minerals Committee that the council’s goal is to reverse long‑term economic decline in Wyoming and to use the Business Ready Communities (BRC) program to build local capacity for economic growth.

Durrell said the state faces declining GDP and median‑wage growth compared with regional peers and flagged a widening gap between population growth and labor‑force participation. “We stop thinking of it as brain drain and start thinking of it as our kids,” Durrell said, arguing that workforce participation, child care and housing are binding constraints on growth.

The council presented changes to BRC rules and a draft bill (26LSO71 draft 0.4) that would, among other things, remove authorization for educational uses, establish a minimum local match for BRC grants, and change program definitions. Durrell said the council’s proposed rule change set a 25% minimum cash match to ensure communities have “skin in the game.” He noted strong public comment (about 50 responses, including a 14‑page submission from one community) and that many smaller towns told the council they could not afford a 25% cash match.

Durrell walked the committee through the council’s recent evolution: earlier years focused on return on investment (ROI) screening and reducing the number of projects awarded; more recently the council is trying to make BRC an instrument to build local capacity and revenue recapture so communities can support future economic development without perpetual state subsidies. As an example Durrell described a BRC project in Mills with Austin Engineering: a $20 million project composed of a $15 million grant and $5 million loan that the council says would leverage another $10 million, create 161 jobs and $12 million in wages and would bring estimated revenue recapture of roughly $5.3 million to the local community and $7.8 million to the state over time. Durrell cautioned that the timeline and scale of those returns are not large enough, by themselves, to create enduring local fiscal capacity.

Public commenters and stakeholders acknowledged the council’s intent but urged flexibility for small towns. Randy McKay of the Wyoming Business Alliance praised the council for re‑examining its work and urged continued focus on attracting businesses. Matt Murdock, mayor of Pinedale and president of the Wyoming Association of Municipalities, supported the “intent of the BRC revisions” but told the committee that 85 of Wyoming’s 99 municipalities have populations under 5,000 and many lack planning staff or technical resources to document barriers to growth as the proposed rules would require.

LSO analyst Brian Fuller reviewed the draft bill (26LSO71, draft 0.4) for the committee and said the draft: (1) strikes educational development as an eligible BRC activity, (2) would require a minimum 25% match for grants on and after July 1, 2026, and (3) removes a University of Wyoming Business Technology Center reference for certain IT…