Committee reviews constitutional draft to create compounding-investment permanent revenue account

LSO legal staff and State Treasurer Curt Meyer briefed the Select Committee on a constitutional amendment draft that would create a Wyoming Compounding Investments Permanent Revenue Account and require deposits to be held and reinvested for at least 30 years before earnings tied to a particular deposit can be spent.

LSO counsel described the draft as a constitutional vehicle to require long-term investment and compounding of appropriations the legislature places into the account. "The fund is called the compounding investments permanent revenue account," counsel said, noting the text places the new account alongside other constitutionally established permanent funds. The draft gives the legislature discretion to set annual deposit amounts, but requires that amounts appropriated be retained and reinvested for 30 years before earnings attributable to those deposits may be distributed as prescribed by the legislature.

The draft lists permitted distribution categories after the compounding period: infrastructure, education, fixed government expenses, addressing inflation, and reduction of tax burdens. Treasurer Meyer said the categories were intentionally broad and suggested drafting choices (for example, using "appropriated by the legislature" as the distributive trigger) to preserve legislative oversight and avoid litigation over ambiguous terms. He also recommended adding an Oxford comma to improve clarity in the list.

Committee members asked technical questions about implementation mechanics. Representative Nicholas and others asked how the draft would track each year's deposit and the earnings attributable to it after 30 years; LSO counsel said the approach would require statutory design work and raised practical concerns about accounting for vintages and compounded returns across many deposit years. Treasurer Meyer explained practical considerations for private-equity style investing: to achieve diversification and expected long-term returns, the account would require consistent annual appropriations of a size that supports multiple private investments each year; he suggested illustrative annual ranges and noted institutional investors typically use vintages and multi-year deployment schedules to avoid having to sell private assets at distressed prices.

Members did not take action on the constitutional draft during this meeting; staff and the treasurer suggested additional statutory-level details be developed if the committee wishes to pursue the concept further.

Ending: The draft will require follow-up technical work with LSO and the treasurer's office to determine practical deposit sizing, vintage accounting and how statutory language should implement the constitutional framework; committee members asked staff to prepare statute-level options if leadership wants the proposal to move forward.