If you don't understand the budget, I recommend you tune into the floor sessions right now. House and Senate are currently walking through the bill now.
House here:
Senate:
For an eye-popping statistic... with this proposed supplemental budget, Nicholas said we'll have cut roughly $1 billion from government in five years.
We know the House is going to attempt to put about $50 million back into the budget due to improving projections for minerals -- we undervalued oil in the last CREG by more than $10 a barrel.
The Senate is likely not on-board with that. Will have a piece out on that later.
You can tell the Senate is chomping at the bit for education funding. On this side of the building, Sen. Drew Perkins warned that if we try to fix education through the budget, we put the whole document at-risk. That totals to about $200m in cuts on top of $275m already done.
If you count our savings, Wyoming sits at a $15.9 million surplus including no use of the 1% FMR stream under the current CREG – well above the believed $877 million shortfall projected in May and smaller than the $143.2 million surplus after the governor’s recommendations.
This is how we got there (via the Legislative Service Office.)
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But yeah, this really underscores how tight our budget situation is. When the group that broadcasts your public meetings is a "want," you're really up against it.
"I didn't come to do the people's work so people couldn't see what I was doing," says @Provenza4Wyomin against the amendment.
Side note, there's another bill that would expand allocations for more lawmakers to get reimbursed for work trips.
Rep. Sommers just successfully an amendment to ban reimbursements for trips to partisan events, like CPAC.
One voted against, but not sure who. Voice vote.
The entire thing failed to advance despite impassioned advocacy from Rep. Zwonitzer, who said he wanted this for opportunities to attend conferences for LGBTQ lawmakers as a means to connect with legislators from other states he can relate better with.
"We have touched the point to where we're reaching into those we care most about but we don't have the answer because we are simply out of money," he said. "It's our problem, it's our responsibility, but everyone now realizes the problem we're in."
This is an informational meeting, but a lot of longer-term Senators are preaching about the deep impacts of the cuts they are considering on seniors, especially.
They know the problem but, as we were told last week, they'll cut til they find the floor.
Baldwin said we seem to be dropping further off, rather than replacing what we took away. And getting worse.
"What will we do if we cut too far this time?" asked Baldwin. "We can't fix those lives, so I guess... what will we do? That's the question."
Sitting in House Corps where they're hearing 4 bills to reform the ability to issue health orders.
Various degrees of severity, sponsorship.
HB98 Public health orders-reforms.
HB113 Public health orders-limitations.
HB127 Public health amendments.
HB56 Public health orders-2.
HB-98 -- sponsored by Rep. Gray -- turns state health officer into Senate confirmed position, can be removed, governor has to sign all health orders. Legislature would ratify orders. wyoleg.gov/Legislation/20…
HB-127 basically removes immediate actions -- i.e. quarantining sick individuals -- from legislative oversight.
"Political decisions" -- in this case, passing a mask mandate, limiting travel for many, etc. -- for longer than 10 days would be subject to approval by state/local.