Wyoming House gives initial approval to bill raising agency fees

Although the House ultimately advanced the proposal by a comfortable margin on its first reading, some lawmakers pushed back on parts of the bill, especially one that would establish a minimum $25 fee on parolees for each month of probationary supervision by the state. The bill would also establish a monthly $10 drug testing fee for parolees, along with a fee of no more than $100 for the transfer of probationary supervision.

During debate Tuesday, House Speaker Eric Barlow, R-Gillette, said he would support the bill on its first reading, but added that he would not be able to give final approval to the legislation if the parolee fees were still included in it.

“We’ve spent three years on justice reform. I want somebody to speak to how this fits into justice reform that we’ve spent so much time on,” Barlow said. “We talked about the undue benefit to the agency. I want to talk about the undue consequence to the parolee or probationer.”

Rep. Andy Schwartz, D-Jackson, who is a member of the Joint Appropriations Committee that sponsored the bill, said while still supportive of the legislation overall, he had issues with the section establishing new fees on probationers and parolees.

“These are not people who have necessarily a great amount of disposable income,” Schwartz said. “I understand that there are provisions for waiving the fee. It is not clear how that will be determined (or) what right of appeal exists.”

Schwartz said he planned to bring an amendment during the bill’s second reading to address the concerns raised by him and others in the House.

Along with its section creating new fees on parolees – which accounts for about two-thirds of the total revenue raised by the legislation – HB 49 would also double existing fees for new and renewed food licenses.

“The reason that the committee took this on and thought this was an adequate amount and a fair time to do this is these fees were put in place in about 2000, so they’re almost 20 years old and have not been changed or altered since that time,” Rep. Tom Walters, R-Casper, explained to his colleagues. “This really just brings it in line with closer to what might be an inflationary increase.”

The proposed legislation would also double the minimum fee to acquire a mining permit, from $100 to $200.

While explaining the bill, Rep. Lloyd Larsen, R-Lander, said the WDEQ fee for mining permits hasn’t been changed since 1973.

Under the proposal, a wide variety of health care facilities, such as assisted living facilities, ambulatory surgical centers and dialysis centers, would also have to pay more to receive their operational licenses from the Wyoming Department of Health. For standard hospitals, the licensing fee would rise from a maximum of $500 to $1,000, which Larsen noted is still lower than in surrounding states.

During debate, Rep. Tim Hallinan, R-Gillette, questioned whether Wyoming hospitals would be willing to pay the additional fees, given the existing costs they already pay to become fully operational. In response, Rep. Bob Nicholas, R-Cheyenne, who co-chairs the Joint Appropriations Committee, said hospital officials were included in prior discussions to decide by how much to increase the fees.

“We had public hearings on this repeatedly, and if the folks had big concerns, they would have told us,” Nicholas said.

Nicholas also reminded his colleagues that there are roughly $500 million in budget cuts before the Legislature.

“This is one step out of many, many more that you’re going to see over the course between now and the end of session, and every little bit helps,” Nicholas said.

Larsen, who also sits on the Joint Appropriations Committee, echoed his colleague, running through the difficult decisions that lawmakers will have to sort through in this year’s supplemental budget in coming months.

“When we get to the budget, you’re going to see step three reductions in health care (of) 6% to foster parents ... you’re going to see a 5% reduction to reimbursements for people that are on providers for Medicaid, and the list goes on,” Larsen said. “These are the neighbors you’re talking about, and we’re going to say, ‘Sorry, we can’t fund that because we couldn’t raise a fee that hasn’t been raised since 1973 and is four times less than our neighboring states.’”

Although the bill advanced on its first reading, several lawmakers were opposed to the measure, arguing that raising fees was equivalent to implementing tax increases.

“It’s a poor time to be raising taxes on the citizens and the hardworking people of Wyoming,” Rep. Bill Fortner, R-Gillette, said. “If you could have did this 10 years ago, I think it would have went over a lot better. I’m not for this, not one little bit.”

However, the majority of the House ultimately advanced the bill for further consideration on second reading. The bill could be debated further during the House’s floor session, set to begin at 10 a.m. today. However, if it wins final approval from the House, with only a few days remaining in the Legislature’s virtual, eight-day session, House Bill 49 likely wouldn’t be considered by the Senate until lawmakers reconvene in person later this year.

In other action:

After winning final approval from the Senate last week, Senate File 16, a proposal requiring state regulators to set reimbursement rates for home-generated solar power while preventing assumed “subsidization” that other ratepayers provide to those solar-generating customers, will not be heard in the House until later this spring.

House Bill 9, which would establish a short-time compensation program in Wyoming, won approval on its first reading in the Senate on Tuesday. The legislation, which won near-unanimous approval in the House, would allow employers to reduce workers’ hours in lieu of layoffs, while allowing those workers to access unemployment benefits to supplement their reduced pay. If approved, Wyoming would join 27 other states that already have such a program in place.