February 15, 2023 |
A revenue bill that passed the state House last week and is now in the Senate could provide property tax relief to homeowners in Wyoming. If House Bill 98 becomes law, homeowners will see about a $300 reduction in their property tax.
The legislation allows an exemption of up to $50,0000 on homes worth $250,000 or more. The House Revenue Committee sponsored the legislation. Committee Chair Steve Harshman described it last week as a “nice little relief” package.
The rush of “real estate refuges” to Wyoming since 2020 has driven up property taxes to painfully high levels for many long-time residents. The land rush in Wyoming was driven largely by the corona virus panic, with people escaping the high taxes and big populations common in big cities and “Blue” states. Wyoming has one of the lowest property taxes the nation, thanks in large part to mineral subsidies. Chairman Harshman said homeowners will save about $300 a year for two years.
Homeowners in Carbon County could see an exemption at the higher end of the scale. The mill levy here is 70.5, slightly above the statewide average. Of that number, the board of commissioners here uses 12 mills on each dollar raised to fund local governments. Property taxes also pay for schools, junior colleges and special districts.
Property tax relief was touted as an issue in last year’s gubernatorial and legislative races. HB 98 passed by a wide margin on third reading last week. Opposition was fierce among critics of the legislation. House Bill 98 requires the state to backfill the lost county tax revenues with $70 million from the RainyDay Fund over two fiscal years, 2025 and 2026.
The debate came down to who will bear the costs of running the state. Some counties saw double-digit revenue increases because of increased property valuations during the real estate boom. Those counties could have lowered mill levies to provide relief at the local level, but they did not. Rep. Lloyd Larsen of Fremont County said the only entity left to pay the piper for the bills no one else wants to absorb is the same as it always is in Wyoming.
These same extractive industries are asked to foot the bill while enduring political headwinds from Washington, D.C., and from some quarters within Wyoming, which are opposed to carbon-based energy production.
Other lawmakers, such as Liz Storer of Teton County, characterized the bill as a band-aid and not a real fix. Storer said the exemption will help some homeowners more than others, and the relief will only be short-term.
Storer noted that the relief will be applied unevenly around the state. The $300 annual reduction in property tax might be a significant reduction in the eastern part of the state, but insignificant in Jackson and Cody.
Carbon County Assessor Renee Snider said she is working to determine what the impact of HB 98 will be if it becomes law. The assessor said the way taxes are lumped together, she did have the residential property tax figure within easy reach when we talked with her on Tuesday.
In an email to Bigfoot 99 after researching the issue, Snider said approximately 7,515 residential parcels are listed in Carbon County. The quick math (7,515 x $50K) indicates HB98 would cost the county about $35,750,000 in fair market in possible exemptions). By comparison, Carbon County’s 2022 fair market value on residential houses was $948,786,168, indicating a big impact on the county’s revenues.
The devastating impact on revenues to non-energy producing counties in Wyoming was one of the main arguments against the bill on the House floor last week. The Wyoming County Commissioners Association is opposed to the legislation.
House District 47’s Bob Davis of Baggs, who served briefly on the Carbon County Board of Commissioners, said property taxes are local problem that should be solved locally, not in a top-down fashion by the state legislature.
Davis was in the minority. HB 98 cleared third reading with 46 “ayes,” 15 “no” and one absent. The tax relief package was sent to the Senate where it was assigned to the revenue committee on Monday.
