2025 Legislative Session Gavels In On Jan. 14

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The theme of the 2025 Legislature is change. In fact, you may need a program to tell all the new faces as the Wyoming Legislature gavels in for its 40-day 2025 Legislative Session starting on Jan. 14 in Cheyenne. Nearly 30 of the Legislatureís 92 members will be new to the Capitol and around two-thirds of all Legislators serving in 2025 will have served less than two terms by January.

Meanwhile, there has been an ideological shift, especially in the House of Representatives where the Freedom Caucus now claims a majority over the more moderate Wyoming Caucus. That means members of the more conservative Freedom Caucus will determine leadership in the House, as well as chairman of legislative committees. That inexperience means a number of new chairmen learning on the job and taking on new tasks such as learning more about state budgets.

It all leads to a high level of uncertainty surrounding the 2025 session.

The 2025 session will be a general session, which does include a supplemental budget. Governor Mark Gordon told the Wyoming Taxpayers Association Meeting on Oct. 29, that he believes a supplemental budget exists just to address issues unforeseen to those putting together a standard budget the year before such as wildfire suppression funds, which were exhausted in the summer of 2024. The state got a shot of good news on Oct. 31 as the Consensus Revenue Estimating Group (CREG) believes the state will have $173 million more to work with this session than originally thought due to capital gains. In all, the state has $12 billion in the Permanent Mineral Trust Fund, $1.2 billion in the Legislative Reserve Account (or rainy day account) and over $3 billion in the Common School Foundation Account. In all, nearly 30% of the stateís bills are paid through the interest and capital gains earned on those permanent funds.

One thing we do know is property tax relief will be back in the spotlight as the Legislature's Revenue Committee heard six different proposed bills during its November 2024 meeting in Cheyenne. The bills offer revisions for the property tax refund program, the long term homeowners program, as well as offering a homeowners property tax exemption, and a property tax mill levy exemption.

During his speech to the Wyoming Taxpayers Association, Governor Gordon expressed an interest in seeing what impacts the four property tax relief bills passed in 2024 would have on county funding. Steve Harshman is the House Chair of the Revenue Committee until January. He says he thinks some lawmakers believe there is still work to do on property tax relief in Wyoming.

ìProperty taxes are three things,î he said. ìItís about valuation, the assessment rate, and the other is the number of mills. We are looking at all three of those again. We will continue that work as have legislatures before us.î

Due to our print schedule, it was not known which bills will be sponsored by the Joint Revenue Committee during the 2025 session, or their fiscal impacts, but there are six that were considered during the committee's November 18-19 meeting in Cheyenne. The bills included:

Property Tax Exemption for Residential Property - Revisions: This bill amends last year's law that caps the increase of fair market value for your home at 4% year-over-year. If passed, this bill would tie your home's fair market value increase to the consumer price index or 3%, whichever is less. In addition, it would roll back your homeís value to what it was in 2019. You would then pay taxes on your home (and associated buildings' value as it was in 2019, and then no more than 3% more each year going forward. Should the bill pass, the rollback goes into effect if permitted by a vote of your local county commission. This idea is not new, as the Freedom Caucus brought a similar measure last year. Opponents of the idea expressed concerns with uniformity and equity if one county approves the change and another doesn't.

The Property Tax Refund Program Revisions bill: Since being funded in 2023, the Property Tax Refund Program has proved to be wildly popular. Perhaps more popular than expected as $14 million of the $20 million appropriated for the biennium has been spoken for in 2024. According to the Wyoming Department of Revenue, 14,752 applications were received this year and 13,485 were paid out. That is nearly double the number that applied the year previous. Last year a line item veto by the Governor removed the income tier of those who were making 165% of county median income. Termed, ìa clean-up bil,î this would mirror that veto, allowing those to receive a refund if they made up to 145% of county median income.

The Long-Term Homeowner Tax Exemption program isnít technically in effect yet; that happens next year. However, the program offers those who are 65 and over and have paid residential property tax in Wyoming for 25 years 50% off their property tax starting in 2025. The application deadline being the fourth Monday in May. However, there is already a bit of interest in it, with 10,600 applications already sent in. The bill being considered would remove the provision allowing for the spouse of a person who qualified for the exemption, but has not otherwise qualified for the exemption.

Property Tax - Mill Levy Adjustment - This bill would determine how many mills can be charged based on how much was paid by a county in property tax a year ago. It requires mills to be reduced if the 25 education mills exceed revenue of the previous year plus inflation or 3%. It does not apply to the statewide 12 mills in the constitution or the 6 school mills in each county. The same mill limits would apply to the 12 mills to pay county bills and 8 city mills. Special districts do not appear to be impacted.

Tax Reform 2025 is the name of Harshman's bill from 2024 that would eliminate property tax for those whose home has less than a $1 million valuation and make up for that revenue with a two-penny sales tax increase. There are several changes to this bill in 2025 from the 2024 version. To alleviate concerns of the industrial power users, the industrial property tax rate would drop to 9.5% from 11.5%. Instead of a sales tax refund for the extra two pennies on the dollar being paid by industrial users, there would be a $50,000 exemption on tangible personal property for business such as office furniture, and computer systems.

Currently, the state charges four cents statewide as sales tax and this bill would make the fifth cent permanent and allow counties to opt out of the fifth cent. The big change to this bill is an attempt to offer property tax to renters who sometimes feel the pinch of property tax hikes through their rental payments. A rental refund program would be available to renters up to $1,000 per year depending on the renters' gross household income.

The Homeowners Property Tax Exemption – This is the return of last year's Senate File 54, which would offer a 25% reduction on property values for a two-year period and cost the state a quarter of a billion dollars in backfill funding to make schools, counties and others that rely on property tax whole. The bill passed the House and Senate and was vetoed by the Governor. Expect it to cruise through the Legislature.