Wyoming Legislature Approves Compromise On Local Funding

In one of the last votes of the 2016 budget session of the Wyoming Legislature, lawmakers in both the state house and senate have approved a compromise local funding formula that sets aside some funding for communities undergoing a financial hardship due to declining revenues.

The measure allocates roughly half as much money for those communities as a funding formula approved by the senate earlier this week. The house had originally refused to agree to the earmarking of funds for hardship communities.

But a conference committee hammered out an agreement cutting the amount earmarked for those communities from about 10 percent of a portion of the  allocation to about five percent

The compromise measure passed the house by a vote of 43-12 and the senate by a margin of 18-11, although there were members of both houses who said they were agreeing only grudgingly.

The final allocation of state money for the 99 local governments across the state totals $105 million, an increase of $15 million over the amount put forward by Governor Matt Mead in his proposed budget.