Wyoming
In surprise move, Wyoming Senate says it won’t pass budget bill this year – WyoFile
CHEYENNE—In an unprecedented move, Senate leadership announced Wednesday night that the upper chamber would not pass a supplemental budget during the 2025 general session.
“After weeks of diligent consideration, the Wyoming Senate has concluded that now is not the time to increase spending needlessly,” Senate leaders said in a joint statement.
The decision raises questions about the future of disaster recovery funding after a historic year for wildfires in Wyoming, among other appropriations. It could also prevent more severe cuts being pushed by House leadership.
Several longtime lawmakers told WyoFile they were unaware of another time legislators had declined to pass a supplemental budget. By his own account, Rep. Steve Harshman, R-Casper, said it may very well be the first time since the Legislature began crafting supplemental budgets in 1975.
In even-numbered years, lawmakers craft the state’s upcoming two-year budget, also known as a biennium budget. In odd-numbered years, as lawmakers have been doing this session, the Legislature works on the supplemental budget — which, as the name implies, supplements the financial plan already in effect.
This year, however, Senate leadership says it’s inessential.
“The 2025-2026 biennium budget provides the necessary funding to run the state, with only eight months until budget discussions begin, now is not the time for this supplemental agreement,” according to the press release.
In his budget recommendations, Gov. Mark Gordon asked lawmakers to prioritize funds for wildfire recovery, energy projects, emergency funds for local governments and reimbursement rates for maternity and mental health care.
The Wyoming Freedom Caucus-stacked Joint Appropriations Committee responded by cutting approximately $235 million from his recommendations.
And after the House and the Senate completed their separate deliberations, the upper chamber had approximately $109 million more in spending than the lower chamber. The split paled in comparison to last year’s billion-dollar divide, but highlighted several philosophical differences that would have likely been difficult for the two chambers to reconcile.
As lawmakers developed a supplemental budget, they also advanced several bills to cut residential property taxes — each with a varying risk of drying up revenue for local governments. Property taxes fund local services including K-12 education, law enforcement and community colleges. And the risk of cutting off revenues prompted debate about whether or to what degree the state should reimburse those dollars.
Two chambers worked on their own versions of the budget independently, and the House lurched ahead of the Senate, promptly completing its budget presentations and appointing members to a committee to reconcile the budget bill differences. The Senate, meanwhile, only finished those tasks this week.
“I wish that the communication had been better,” House Appropriations Committee Chairman John Bear, R-Gillette, told WyoFile. “And that they wouldn’t have dropped it on us as a surprise as we’ve been trying to get them to meet with us for three weeks on the budget.”
It will now be critical to “ensure that all the important services are funded that the people are expecting,” Bear said, and the House will need to “get things into different bills to ensure that nothing slips through the cracks.”
While the decision was not made lightly, Senate President Bo Biteman, R-Ranchester, said in a statement that his chamber “determined that we need to hold off on the budget until we know what the impact of historic property tax cuts and the successful rightsizing of the federal bureaucracy by the new administration.”
Funding for certain items would be “covered in stand-alone legislation without adding hundreds of millions of dollars to the budget,” according to a press release.
Sen. Chris Rothfuss, D-Laramie, echoed that thought to WyoFile late Wednesday.
“But at the same time, it’s certainly appropriate for the governor, if he chooses, to have a special session to address wildfire funding,” Rothfuss said, since Gordon is permitted to hold a single-topic special session.
Last year’s historic wildfires, which burned more than 810,000 acres, completely wiped out the state’s firefighting coffers.
Rothfuss also pointed out that the external cost adjustment for education, for example, is already in another bill. Education funding came into sharp focus Wednesday when a judge ruled Wyoming unconstitutionally underfunds schools and ordered lawmakers to address the issue.
“We’ll be OK without [the supplemental budget],” Rothfuss said. And Senate leadership’s decision “is a rational approach as an alternative to just trying to dramatically cut the budget.”
Harshman, who among other lawmakers has raised concerns about the Legislature depleting the state’s savings and education funding, told WyoFile late Wednesday that while the move to hold off on a supplemental budget is unusual, it may be prudent.
“We should probably push pause to make sure this is what the people of Wyoming want,” Harshman said.
This is a breaking news story and may be updated.
CASPER, Wyo. — High school athletics in Wyoming could see some drastic changes in the coming years following legislative changes to the state’s education budget, the Wyoming High School Activities Association recently announced in a statement.
According to the WHSAA, Wyoming school districts are facing a projected $3.9 million shortfall in activities funding, forcing officials to consider significant cuts to high school sports and extracurricular programs.
The WHSAA shared details regarding a new “silo” funding model implemented by the Legislature, stating that the recalibrated block grant model reduced funding for student activities and extra-duty responsibilities from $46.3 million to $42.4 million, an approximately 8.4% decrease statewide.
WHSAA Commissioner Trevor Wilson said the restructuring also restricts district access to an additional $76.2 million in previously flexible funding.
“A significant portion of the [April 28 WHSAA Board of Directors] meeting was dedicated to discussing the projected funding shortfall,” Wilson wrote.
The WHSAA is weighing several strategies to address rising costs with fewer resources. Proposed changes include eliminating regional tournaments and reducing the number of teams qualifying for state events from eight to four; limiting wrestling to two classes and restricting track and field state participants to the top 16 marks; making cuts to soccer, indoor track and field, Nordic and Alpine skiing, swimming and diving, spring golf and tennis; and reducing in-person speech and debate events by half and centrally locating All-State Music events to minimize travel. The board also recommended increasing gate admission or implementing student participation fees to offset costs.
While the WHSAA release states that no plans have been finalized and the various changes are currently just possibilities, Natrona County School District 1 Board of Trustees member Mary Schmidt criticized the WHSAA’s handling of the news at Monday’s board meeting.
“I take some issues with this, [including] the sheer fact that we as Board of Trustees members have not talked about that at all,” Schmidt said. “It is not our intent and it has not been brought to us to cut our athletics or activities budget for the upcoming school year. … I take issue with them picking sports and getting the community upset and ginning them up to be upset that this is all going to be cut when that hasn’t been discussed.”
Later in the meeting, Superintendent Angela Hensley clarified that Natrona County School District 1’s athletics and activities budget saw a reduction of roughly $550,000 in the coming year’s budget, but said the local school district does not plan to cut any sports.
“Thank you, Trustee Schmidt, for saying this, because I think people are wondering — we are not planning to cut athletics and activities for next year,” Hensley said. “We do have to take a look at our entire budget as we have talked about, as we learn more about these new rules that come in.”
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Republished with permission from Wyoming News Now, a TV news outlet covering the Cheyenne and Casper areas.
Cheyenne City Council has introduced a temporary moratorium, or pause, on new data center construction.
“The end goal is to actually have regulations in place, to have really heavy public involvement with this with data centers,” said Councilman Mark Moody.
The proposed ordinance is not a permanent ban on data centers and would not affect data centers currently under construction.
Councilman Moody says this is a bipartisan issue.
“I just want to make this clear, I’m not against data centers. We do need them from a national security perspective,” he said.
He said there needs to be more public input and regulations regarding data centers in Cheyenne.
The ordinance would require city staff to study data center impacts such as electricity usage, electricity tariffs, closed-loop cooling systems, groundwater impacts, agricultural impacts, and land value.
Cheyenne LEADS, the economic development corporation for Cheyenne and Laramie County, reported in November 2025 that there are 12 operational data centers in Wyoming, five under construction and plans for 43 data centers announced across the state.
“There needs to be more public input with this, and also to see how many we can sustain here in this community, cause there are talks of 43, and then another day 70. How many can we sustain here?” said Councilman Moody.
The proposed moratorium will now go to the Public Services Committee on Monday, May 18 at noon in the Municipal Building.
Sheridan will play in the North Regional Tournament at Gillette, while the South Regional Tournament will be played at Rock Springs.
North Regional Tournament at Gillette:
Checking record vs. highest team in the quadrant not involved in the tie, Thunder Basin gets the #1 Northeast seed over Campbell County, because the Lady Bolts went 3-1 vs. Sheridan, whereas the Lady Camels went 2-2.
Friday, May 15th:
(#1 NE) Thunder Basin vs. (#4 NW) Jackson – 11am
(#2 NW) Natrona County vs. (#3 NE) Sheridan – 11am
(#2 NE) Campbell County vs. (#3 NW) Kelly Walsh – 1pm
(#1 NW) Cody vs. (#4 NE) Worland – 1pm
Semi-Finals:
Thunder Basin/Jackson winner vs. Natrona County/Sheridan winner – 3pm Winner qualifies for the state tournament.
Campbell County/Kelly Walsh winner vs. Cody/Worland winner – 5pm Winner qualifies for the state tournament.
Consolation Round:
Thunder Basin/Jackson loser vs. Natrona County/Sheridan loser – 3pm LOSER OUT!
Campbell County/Kelly Walsh loser vs. Cody/Worland loser – 5pm LOSER OUT!
Saturday, May 16th:
TBA vs. TBA – 10am LOSER OUT! Winner qualifies for the state tournament.
TBA vs. TBA – 10am LOSER OUT! Winner qualifies for the state tournament.
2 10am winners vs. each other – 1pm 3rd Place
TBA vs. TBA – 1pm 1st Place
South Regional Tournament at Rock Springs:
Friday, May 15th:
(#1 SW) Laramie vs. (#4 SE) Torrington – 11am
(#2 SE) Cheyenne East vs. (#3 SW) Green River – 11am
(#2 SW) Rock Springs vs. (#3 SE) Wheatland – 1pm
(#1 SE) Cheyenne Central vs. (#4 SW) Cheyenne South – 1pm
Semi-Finals:
Laramie/Torrington winner vs. Cheyenne East/Green River winner – 3pm Winner qualifies for the state tournament.
Rock Springs/Wheatland winner vs. Cheyenne Central/Cheyenne South winner – 5pm Winner qualifies for the state tournament.
Consolation Round:
Laramie/Torrington loser vs. Cheyenne East/Green River loser – 3pm LOSER OUT!
Rock Springs/Wheatland loser vs. Cheyenne Central/Cheyenne South loser – 5pm LOSER OUT!
Saturday, May 16th:
TBA vs. TBA – 10am LOSER OUT! Winner qualifies for the state tournament.
TBA vs. TBA – 10am LOSER OUT! Winner qualifies for the state tournament.
2 10am winners vs. each other – 1pm 3rd Place
TBA vs. TBA – 1pm 1st Place
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