The Albany County Board of County Commissioners approved an access agreement with the Wyoming Department of Health to allow use of the EMPOWER software to administer the county's Community Service Block Grant (CSBG) for federal fiscal years 2026–2029, and then approved a subrecipient amendment to bind local subrecipients to the same software access.
A county presenter described the software: "So this is the new for the new software program that the state put together for administering our community service block grant funding. And it allows, our sub recipients to enter their information through that program for reporting purposes," and added that subrecipients may optionally use other features of the program. The board moved and approved the access agreement.
Following that vote, the board considered a subrecipient amendment for FFY 2026 that would bind five local agencies to the EMPOWER agreement: Laramie Interfaith, Safe Project, Laramie Reproductive Health, Downtown Clinic, and Family Promise of Albany County. The board approved the amendment; the minutes record one abstention, "May it be known that Pete did abstain from this item." The county also approved vouchers for November 2025 during the same meeting and then adjourned.
The record does not show extended debate on the merits of EMPOWER or the specific operational impacts on each subrecipient during the meeting; staff indicated the agreement and the amendment were administrative steps to implement state reporting requirements for CSBG funds.