Alec Schaffer
aschaff3@uwyo.edu
The Laramie city council reviewed the 2016 legislative session with the Albany County legislators Monday night.
The main area of focus was that of the recent state budget problems and how the decrease of state funding will affect Laramie.
For Laramie state shared revenue makes up a large portion of its revenue. This could mean during the 2015 fiscal year Laramie will be receiving $865,023 less than previously planned, according to the 2015 Legislature Direction to Joint Revenue Committee for interim study.
This budget shortcomings came as a response the Obama administrations clean power plan which requires a 44 percent decrease in carbon emissions for the state. Legislators fear this will cause severe economic troubles for Wyoming communities such as Gillette.
However, another key aspect in the current financial situations is how it will effect state-wide education.
“Education funding obligations hang over our head in a horrendous way – state government doesn’t have to fund cities and towns do not have to build highways. One thing it has to do is provide education,” Speaker of the House Kermit C. Brown, R-Laramie, said. “Don’t kid yourself, energy industry paying for education when that’s not available, that’s going to come out of general fund.”
Laramie Councilor Paul Weaver said he worried whether the current financial troubles could possess potential threats to the Hathaway scholarship funds, as the city tends do better when there are more students and funding.
Kermit assured Weaver that Hathaway obligations funded by trusts that currently have sufficient income are not at risk. He then said student population growth is highly beneficial to the community if the state can afford it because as the student population grows it will come out of the state’s funds.
Additional concerns as to funding of state construction projects were discussed, and 35 percent of state gross product is in construction.
“If you were going to start only paying for local government own employees might be fine, but all construction workers lose jobs 35 percent of gross state product in construction in these times,” President of the Senate Phil Nicholas, R-Albany, said. “We have operations being limited in energy – more important we maintain construction projects to maintain resources not employed by the tate.”
