Wyoming Department of Transportation Director Darren Westby presented the agency's $256 million standard budget and $26.7 million in exception requests, focusing committee attention on a one‑time $18.4 million capacity purchase agreement to sustain commercial air service at five smaller airports and a package of law enforcement and operational equipment requests.

Nut graf: Westby framed the requests as necessary to maintain critical transportation services: he said the capacity purchase agreement dates to a 2019 legislative initiative that helped guarantee air service to small communities and that pilot and block‑hour costs have spiked since 2019, leaving the program short without a bridge fund. "Pilot costs for regional carriers have almost doubled since 2019," aeronautics staff said, and the agency asked for a mix of general fund, tourism account and a transportation income account grant to fund the bridge.

The agency also gave detailed justification for a highway patrol equipment and staffing package that includes vehicle operating increases, in‑car and body camera systems, GPS mapping replacements, tasers and a request to reclassify 16 trooper positions to sergeants (to improve field supervision). Deputy Taylor Rossetti said training and equipment to bring a trooper fully online runs about $96,000 in training plus roughly $140,000 of equipment. Rossetti also said trooper pay lags market benchmarks for entry and field ranks—trooper 1 roles about 12.6% behind market and trooper 2 roughly 20% behind in some bands.

Committee members pressed on overtime exposure (the director indicated the patrol could be roughly $7 million over budget in overtime if patterns are not corrected), snowplow safety (the agency tested green flashing lights and other mitigations to reduce snowplow strikes), and recruitment pipelines including university design/program partnerships for engineers. On passenger air service, aeronautics administrator Sean Burke said the original $15M appropriation is expected to be fully expended this fiscal year and the $18.4M request would bridge the program for roughly two more years as negotiations with carriers continue.

Ending: The committee asked for follow‑up cost sheets—for trooper pay table adjustments, overtime projections and detailed airport expenditure history by community—before next week's markup. YDOT agreed to supply those items.