Wyoming Governor To Continue With Budget Cuts Despite Optimistic Revenue Forecast

CHEYENNE, Wyo. - At a news conference on Wednesday, May 27, Wyoming Governor Dave Freudenthal said he planned to go ahead with five to ten percent cuts for state agency budgets despite optimistic projections released Friday by the Consensus Revenue Estimating Group.

The state’s economic analysts said Friday the reduction would be approximately $19 million for the rest of the 2009-10 biennium.

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The Governor said he would move cautiously, noting that the revenue projections had changed dramatically in the last year.

“If you remember, the sequence has been that less than a year ago, they notified me I had a $900 million surplus. Within a matter of months, it dropped to under $500 million and then it dropped again," he said. "So I’ve got a blip up in the numbers, but it seems the general trend is down. So we’re going to proceed with these budget reductions and the employment constraints will remain in place.”

The Governor said he is considering adjusting cuts in certain areas, including those made to local governments.

“The concern I have is that local governments remain the primary focus for the delivery of services and we’ve heard from a number of them that they can live with ten percent but they’d rather live with five, because they don’t want to lay people off.”

The Governor said he planned to release his budget recommendations to the public and to the Legislature by June 4 to give the Joint Appropriations Committee sufficient time to review the document.

He said he hoped that the CREG’s projections were correct.

“I hope they’re right. Obviously, I’m proceeding with these cuts because it’s a lot easier to end up with money that you haven’t spent and let people allocate it when the Legislature is in town than it is to wait half-way through the year and cut the budgets. If we tried to get 10 percent out of the last half of 2010 - that would be painful. So we’re going to try to do it spread out over the year.”

On the recent announcement about the next ‘Building the Wyoming We Want’ forum in Casper on June 9 and 10, the Governor encouraged the public and state leaders to attend. He said his preview of the values research that will be presented at the conference was fascinating.

“I’d encourage people to consider participating. I travel the state a lot and I think I know it pretty well, but there were some things in there that I found interesting and I hope people will consider putting it on their schedule.”

In response to questions about the recent visit from EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, the Governor said he thought the trip was a useful exercise for Jackson and her staff to gain on the ground experience with western energy production.

“It’s always useful to get somebody out on the ground to see what it is they’re regulating first hand. We saw a wind farm, which she said at the time was her first visit to a wind farm. We took her to the largest coal mine in the country - Black Thunder - which was her first visit to a western coal mine. And then we went down to the Jonah Field and it was her first visit to a western oil or gas field. She and the folks that were with her from EPA had a chance to see how it works on the ground and had a chance to talk to some of the people who work at the mine and in the field. I think that in the sense of trying to place the issues that will come before her in context, I think it was a very useful trip.”

He added that such practical experience is especially important today, considering the intense focus on climate change and energy in Washington, D.C.

“Given the focus in this country on questions surrounding energy and climate, and energy and the environment, I think it’s important for people to come and see how this actually works on the ground,” he said.

Source: Wyoming Governor