- Welcome to the Wyoming Capitol in Cheyenne.

I'm Craig Blumenshine from Wyoming PBS.

This week on "Capitol Outlook," we'll continue our discussions on the budget, on state revenues, and on K-12 education.

We'll begin with the leadership of the Wyoming legislature, Senate President Don Dockstader, and Speaker of the House Dr. Eric Barlow, and then we'll bring in two members of the House Revenue Committee.

That's the Chairman, Representative Steve Harshman, and Representative Jim Roscoe.

Our "Capitol Outlook" profile this week is with an architect, who is also a senator in the Wyoming legislature.

That's Senator Stephan Pappas.

And then we'll revive our tradition of introducing freshmen legislators.

We'll visit with Representative Ember Oakley and Representative Karlee Provenza.

That's next on "Capitol Outlook," which starts now.

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- [Announcer] Programming on Wyoming PBS is brought to you in part by Wyoming Humanities, strengthening Wyoming democracy through the humanities for 50 years, thinkwy.org, - And as we begin our discussion with the leadership of the Wyoming Legislature, please welcome back the speaker to House, Dr. Eric Barlow and Senate president, Dan Dockstader.

Gentlemen welcome back to Capitol Outlook.

Mr. President, I wanna start with you because I followed the House budget debates more closely yesterday, I wanna get your take on what happened in the Senate.

The earlier reports that I'm getting is the Senate was perhaps more assertive in its budget cuts maybe then the House has been, what's your perspective?

- Oh we gathered the troops together and said everybody remember how difficult it is.

And with that we opened up the Second Reading Amendments and you didn't see a lot go through, one of the senators got up and said, "Well, I've just watched the last six go down," he says, "I think I'll just withdraw mine "because it had an expenditure in it."

And that happened two or three times because they were being voted down.

- There were some concern about cuts to the Department of Health, some restorations on the House side, were there any on the Senate side that are noteworthy?

- They were exploring some opportunities to we call it the rob Peter to pay Paul situation.

Can we reach into what we see, or some extra funds in different areas and move them over rather than cut?

And it just becomes, as I got up and said, it becomes, this is where you have to reach down deep and decide are you with that area, or are you with that area?

Where do you stand?

And we actually move some funds over to developmental disabilities.

- Dr. Barlow, your perspective on what happened in the House this week relative to the budget.

- I think the House actually took a pretty optimistic tone and tried to restore some of the cuts that they felt maybe went a little too far.

Now, obviously the governor was responding to a dire financial revenue circumstance in July, August, September, October.

And I think as we get more information, the House felt comfortable that some of those revenues probably are better.

And at the same time, because of the way money gets streamed and flowed, we were gonna be saving more money because of that.

And so I think in the House, well, I don't think there was a lot of generosity, don't take them wrong.

- Sure.

- But I think there was a willingness to step back on some of the, I guess what they call them was the worst of the worst cuts, the cuts to the DD waiver, the cuts to in-home senior services, the cuts to those types of things.

But as far as a bunch of new money for things, I would say the only big add was one for carbon capture and utilization.

We added some money to try to extend the life of our fossil fuel industry particularly coal and boost that.

So I think there was optimism on one side and realism about revenue's picture is improved.

- Give our viewers a perspective now for what will happen.

More cuts to the University of Wyoming on the Senate side, not as many on the House side.

But now you have to all this out, what's the process that our viewers should be aware of in the next week here?

- And we still have the Third Readings to go through.

Once that settles down, then we'll come together with our respective committees and see where there's common ground.

And that's the process from here.

I would note to the Senate also moved funds over to carbon capture because we felt like it's still a viable resource for Wyoming.

And the two bodies are agreeing upon that that we wanna have that fully explored before we leave it.

- Onto a different topic, now that governor Gordon has announced the state would be lifting it's statewide mask mandate and most other public health orders, I'm very interested generally now, from your reflections on the state's response to the COVID-19, president Dockstader let's visit with you first.

Generally speaking, how in your eyes did Wyoming do?

- That was a difficult area to begin with.

I have no criticism for those making the decisions in the beginning 'cause we didn't know exactly what we had.

We were adjusting to it as we went.

And now we have the opportunity to take a closer look.

We have a general bill that's out there, but we also had a quite a debate last night on a task force that would be considered to go back and see how did we handle this in each area?

And one of the discussions was regarding do we have just those for specific to the healthcare industry, or do we reach out and include members of the business community, those who lived it on the front line in our rural communities.

And we are adamant that we include those, and that task force at this point is moving forward because we want to understand where we succeeded or where we may have fallen short.

- Well, we certainly have to examine the lessons learned and lessons learned for the next issue.

In the world that I was trained in and practiced in, veterinary medicine for 20 years, when we had, I would call them animal health emergencies quite often.

I mean, we routinely have brucellosis in Western Wyoming, and then there's other things that come in for an animal disease there's zoonotic diseases.

So I guess in my view, and we always, what did we learn from that one?

We always have those look backs.

In human medicine i.e.

in this public health arena we're in right now with COVID, we haven't had one of those for quite a while, at least a significant one that was a worldwide pandemic.

We had the bird flu, we had some others.

So I think there are lessons to be learned.

There are lessons from this.

Now are there also bills on our side, we had four bills come up, public health officer type bills, public health type bills come up in front of committee earlier this week.

And one of them advanced, and one of them advanced that would give the governor appointment authority over the state health officer.

That's not the way it currently it is.

I think probably the most important thing for me to understand, and I think this goes to what the good president is talking about as far as the consequences to the broader community and to businesses, et cetera, is, how do we deal with the diseased individual and those exposed to actual disease?

And how do we deal with those folks that are not affected by disease, and how we limit transmission with that community?

And try quite honestly one has a public health, and I want the public health professionals to take the lead on that.

And the other is a political thing.

The other is a community and a political thing.

And I do think there's a role, we can adjust the role personally for elected officials and citizenry to be more involved in that.

- Last word on the topic Mr. President.

- I think we go back and look at it when we first started.

Everyone was, what do we have here, this is scary, this is concerning.

But as we started to move through it that same attitude kind of changed and said, so why are there so many mandates related to this that we don't see in the rural communities?

And it becomes a rural-city issue.

And I saw the different attitudes as I traveled back and forth from Cheyenne.

I see it now, as I travel to the small communities around the state, it's an entirely different approach to how we take care of it in the rule side.

and in the cities of Wyoming.

- I wanna move to healthcare and specifically talk about Medicaid, if we could.

Bills before the legislature now to allow Wyoming to participate in what's generally called Medicaid expansion to provide more healthcare perhaps to lower income residents of the state.

With plans that have evolved now from the federal government is now the right time for Wyoming to expand Medicaid?

- I would say, I'm not sure that we have the support on our side of the building, I let the Speaker speak for this.

- I know there's there's bills on both sides of the building.

Ours haven't got far enough in the process to even know where the support is.

And I don't know that we understand all the, I don't understand all of the opportunities being offered right now by the federal government and the longevity of those.

We're getting new stimulus package coming out, there's infrastructure in the works.

There's lots of folks things in the works.

And I mean, there's a lot of moving parts.

Now, do I think that we need to continue having discussion about affordable, accessible healthcare in the state of Wyoming?

Absolutely, is Medicaid expansion component to that?

Very possibly.

- On to education we need to talk about that every week I think we get together.

(Eric chuckling) Just now your bodies will start to have serious discussions about the bills moving forward in your respective bodies.

Mr. President, Senator Scott said this relative to education.

He talked about the basket of goods.

And his thought this week was, "Everything but the kitchen sink is in the basket of goods "and we've lost our focus with education."

Does this body have the time to deal with this huge issue in the next three weeks when you consider things like the basket of goods, how much Wyoming will spend, or won't spend et cetera?

- We would hope for more time there isn't, we have to deal with it.

And it is what it is, we're going to have to decide.

My concern is that as we do this as we look at reductions that have been long needed in this area, we have to make sure that our teachers, our classroom are protected, and getting a little feedback from across the state maybe they felt a little unappreciated this week, that's not the case at all.

We appreciate them very much, but we still have a reality check when it comes to that education budget.

$300 million out there in both capital construction and in school foundation, it still has to be addressed.

And we have a short time to address it.

- Relative to the short time the governor asked in his state speech he said that he wanted our stakeholders and communities to be involved in establishing a plan and a vision.

But again we have a time crunch to make important decisions.

Mr. President, or excuse me, Mr. Speaker.

- So, process continues, right?

We had a recalibration committee through the interim.

It didn't take up the basket of goods.

Now I'm not saying that's right or wrong.

I don't know that there's a bill in the Senate or the House that actually addresses the basket of goods.

So let's go back to the playing field, if you will.

You wanna change the markers on the playing field, someone's got to bring those proposals.

So I don't know if the basket of goods is on the table.

What's on the table right now, I think is mostly just the funding of how education, the funding and then subsequently delivery.

That we give local control, right?

We send out blocks of money to 48 school districts and we rely on local elected officials to oversee the proper provision of education in those communities, including providing the basket of goods.

Now, I don't know if you can supply all the basket of goods in reading, arithmetic and writing.

I don't know, maybe you can, maybe you can get it all in those three things.

So if we have these conversations, we're gonna have the holistic look, bring those bills.

And I'm not saying, I mean, I'm just as responsible for that as anybody else.

I don't think we're there, right now we're just focusing on our revenue stream.

And we know that education has probably the most constricted revenue streams in the state of Wyoming, property tax and state lands, the two primary sources of revenues.

It doesn't have any sales tax, it doesn't have all those other things.

And with those two revenue streams, it seems just most dependent on minerals, our most volatile revenue stream.

So in the House, I think there's more willingness to say, we've got to look at our revenue streams for education too because it's an ongoing part of our state and what our citizenry is interested in.

So how do we have those discussions?

- And many more discussions to come.

I wish we had more time today, but we're gonna move on to our next segment, but we are gonna focus on revenue with the chairman of the House Revenue Committee, that's representative Steve Harshman and also independent representative Jim Roscoe.

That's next, stay with us.

- And as we continue on with this discussion in "Capitol Outlook," it's our pleasure to be joined by the Chairman of the House Revenue Committee, Representative Steve Harshman, and also Representative Jim Roscoe, a member of that committee, and also an Independent, one of the very few in the Wyoming legislature.

To you, both of you, welcome, and thank you for joining us.

- Yeah, thanks for having us.

- Thank you.

- So I wanna start this discussion about your role.

What do you perceive your role to be?

We've heard from the Senate Vice President and many others that the Senate is not going to be amicable to any revenue bills this session.

How does that influence what you do in the House, and the House Revenue Committee?

Mr. Chairman, I'll let you start.

- Yeah, I think, you know, it's a good question.

I think part of it's an education piece, you know, really, and I think, and that's what going through the body.

I think the House, obviously, is different.

We're up for election every two years.

We wanna do what is possible, but we also wanna keep educating members.

So our committee has to pass some bills out, even though we know they're not gonna be passed in the House, or, but it's that process, 'cause really, there's three types of taxes, right?

You know, you've got property taxes, you've got sales taxes, and you have income taxes.

We don't do income taxes.

And we have, I think, the fifth lowest property tax in the United States, and I think the second lowest sales tax in the United States, and we've been blessed because of minerals.

And so, that's the third.

That severance tax is really kind of a, almost an income tax on mineral producers, and that's really where we're at.

It's about coal.

You know, all these issues we're talking about, it's coal, and you know, oil's, you know.

We know in Wyoming oil's gone up and down.

I'm a kid from Midwest Wyoming.

I know about oil's up and downs, but I think the drop in coal's been over 50% just in the last six years, or so.

And you know, it's over $400 million a year to our state budget, and then the local economies, and all the jobs.

So that's really our big issue.

How do you replace the tons of coal?

- Representative Roscoe, what are your thoughts on your role as a member of this committee that passes bills, passes bills through committee, perhaps, but on deaf ears, at least in the Senate for sure this session, and even the House at times?

- It is a little frustrating.

You know, I think the world markets and the national markets are telling us that we need, that we need to adjust our economy a bit.

And so, I don't know what we're gonna, I don't know where it'll end up.

I think we're all feeling each other out at the moment.

And I think the leadership's doing a great job of sort of bringing us together.

And I'm not sure what we're gonna do about education, if we're gonna- - And let's go there right now, because I think that's, see, at least in my eyes, perhaps the biggest need for a serious revenue discussion.

Do you agree with that?

- Well, and I think, you know, so talking about minerals, you know, we're like every other state.

We fund schools with property taxes, and you know, South Dakota has twice the rate of property tax as we do.

So we're blessed in Wyoming, because half of our property taxes are paid on minerals, and that's at 100% valuation.

You know, our homes are only 9 1/2%, and we have the fewest mills in modern state history, 'cause we don't bond for school construction.

I think that the average statewide is 68 mills.

So we're paying the lowest property taxes rate in modern history.

And so, then you have schools that are funded then.

This, minerals pay most of the property tax.

And then we throw federal mineral royalties into that mix, also a significant funding of schools.

So of all the government services, you know, and we have studies from our LSO staff here, you think of corrections, or health, or the university, or community colleges, or highway departments, the most mineral-dependent government service is K-12 education.

And so, we ride these waves, and when those local property tax values crash, when mineral prices crash, then the state has to step in, and make up the difference.

Our talk, and what we're trying to do in the House, is really, you know, we're gonna make cuts We're gonna use all our investment revenue, turn all those dials, and make sure we're- - To support education?

- To support, and spend down our savings.

You can't go ask people to pay a tax when you got a billion dollars in savings.

And so, turn all those dials, and spend down, and I'm confident oil will come back and probably save us.

But we're trying to put in this insurance policy that if our savings get down to this level, then this one cent sales tax would kick in, and you know, and that would move us from second lowest to bottom third, you know, and we'd still be about 30th out of 40, 46 states that have a sales tax, so, and certainly lower than all of our surrounding states- - There's some projections that I think I've read where that likely wouldn't happen- - Right.

- For four or five years.

Is that what you're- - If oil doesn't come back, and we're already seeing, I mean, that's, you know, yeah, worst case scenario would be four or five years.

But you don't have this crisis mode we're always talking about- - Right.

- And I think, you know, I think pessimism and hope are both very contagious, and I think what we say is so infectious like that, so- - Representative Roscoe, what are you hearing from your constituents?

Are they telling you yet that, you know what, it's time for us to maybe pay a little more on the revenue side?

- They are.

And they're willing to do that.

They think education is probably the most important thing that Wyoming has to offer for, you know, if they're living here.

And they are willing to.

They're willing to even do it as far as an income tax, which I think is probably the most least likely thing to actually get through, but they're willing to do it, and these are, some of these are extremely wealthy people that live up in Teton County, you know, which is a totally different part of Wyoming.

- Which would bear most of the burden of an income tax in the iterations at least that I've seen suggested.

- It would , it would actually work, and we wouldn't have to depend so much on our minerals if that were to happen.

But I just don't, I think it'd be very hard to pass.

Sales tax probably is the, like Steve says, the closest thing.

- There's two more issues that I wanna talk about.

One is the reserve account, the rainy day fund, the LSRA.

I think our viewers are gonna be surprised to learn that, you know what, there's gonna be two to 400 million bucks that's gonna go into that account this year.

And I'd like you to explain that, Mr. Chairman, because that might surprise folks.

- Well, and so, you know, how did that get set up was really during the energy boom, 2005.

We had these excess coal revenues, and really started this fund.

And then we put part of our permanent mineral trust, our investment return off the trust fund refuels it.

And I think that's a moral question to talk about.

Those are really intended for today's people, and we take somewhat and put it in a savings account for tomorrow's people.

And so, these are all issues to talk about, but that's how it's gonna grow.

I mean, this fiscal year ends July 1st.

The last two years have been, we've had good investment returns, obviously, and we think that thing is gonna fill up and fully tip into it, probably a couple hundred million dollars, 180 to 200 million.

And so, we've got all these phase three cuts out there, the elderly, and the disabled, and all these things, 'cause most of our budget goes to Department of Health for the most needy folks in our state.

And so, I don't think, I mean, I don't think we're leaving town with those cuts in place, and gonna grow your savings.

That's not what I raised my right hand for, right?

So I think in the end, we'll fix that, or we probably won't even have a budget, and then the governor can fix it when we leave.

And so, one way or the other, we're gonna fix that.

- Is that your shared perspective, representative?

- I think so.

I wish we would, I think we, to some degree, we're kicking the can down the road.

I would like to see us come up with a, you know, a structure that would provide for education in the future.

I just think it's really hard to pass it.

- Wanna turn the page to local tax questions.

It seems to me there's maybe not a shift, but maybe more of an emphasis to, you know what, these tax questions need to be handled locally.

If the municipality wants to tax themselves more, let's let them tax themselves more.

You're considering excise tax bills that are kind of along those lines.

Perhaps schools might be built again by local bond issues down the road.

Are you concerned that, you know, some counties might think that all of those things are good ideas, some counties may not think any of those things are good ideas, and that Wyoming might have some disparity then, because of that kind of local decision-making authority that's probably coming down the road?

- Yeah, I think that's part of that.

We always complain the federal government has their boot on us.

We say, you know, and let us make some of these decisions, and I think we tend to do the same thing with locals, and I think, you don't, there's guard rails on that.

So if one county raises a rate, it's not gonna be double the next county.

I don't think anybody's, but I think they're particularly, as you know, we took the tax off food.

We started funding locals out of the general fund to make up for it.

Well, our general fund is getting squeezed, and we're looking at that, and saying, "How can we get local governments out of the general fund?"

And so, if we're gonna do that, we got to give them a little more freedom.

They have services to provide, right?

We all enjoy all those local services we have from our hospitals to your city park, or whatever it might be.

- [Craig] Road, sewers, all those things- - Exactly, so I think part of that, and every little town, and big town, small town in Wyoming, and counties, they're, you're unique.

They're not all the same.

And so, I think giving locals some of that ability I think is a good thing.

- You agree with that?

- Yeah, I think that's a really good point that counties vary tremendously.

And you know, it basically is just up to the voters if we, you know, if we allow counties to make some of these decisions.

We have a bill coming up in a few minutes about real estate transfer tax.

It's a local, you know, if your county is, it's brought by the county commissioners, and they're allowed to, and if the people vote on it, they can.

And as you're probably aware of the tremendous real estate value up in Teton County, which is, it seems like, you know, with that huge increase in real estate prices and values, it comes with other problems as well, workforce housing, and taxes on older people that are, you know, on a fixed income.

And so, I would hope that we could allow counties to provide for that, just on their own.

In certain counties that wouldn't work, but certain ones, it would.

- Well, thank you both for joining us.

We're gonna move on in this segment of "Capitol Outlook."

Thank you so much for the discussion.

- Thank you.

- Thanks for having us, yeah.

- Up next is our "Capitol Outlook" profile with Senator Stephan Pappas.

He's an architect.

We asked him what the coolest building he's ever designed is, and my guess is you've seen it.

That's next.

- And as we continue with this week's "Capitol Outlook," it's our pleasure to be joined in this "Capitol Outlook" profile with Senator Stephan Pappas.

Senator, welcome back to "Capitol Outlook."

You've been serving in the legislature.

This is, you're in the middle of your second term in the Wyoming Senate.

Tell me, senator, what caused you to want to run after you, quote, unquote, "entered retirement," I guess, from the, at least from the National Guard, the Air Force National Guard?

- Well, frankly, I didn't really have a burning issue, something that I wanted to change in the state.

So many legislators sometimes have that particular thing that drives them to run for office.

I actually started my quasi-government career very young in life.

When I was in school at Arizona State University, I became the president of the school, the college of architecture at the university.

And by virtue of being a president of my college, I also sat on the first council of the university.

So I was one of the senators on the first council from my college.

And so, I kind of enjoyed learning, and working as a representative of a body of people.

And then, after I left that position, I joined many, many organizations after I got back to Wyoming, after I got my degree, and got back to Wyoming.

And I tended to get involved in leadership in all of the organizations, you know, whether it be the Air Force Association, whatever.

There was a multitude of organizations that I've belonged to over time, and the chamber.

All of these, I sought out positions where I could affect change in the body.

So as I grew in my career in the National Guard, I became the Assistant Adjutant General for the air side of the Guard, and certainly had to interface with government, because you know, 4% of the state's, of the Wyoming Military Department's budget comes from the state government.

And so, we were always interfacing with legislators, and it was just, it brought back memories of what I did when I was a younger man in college.

And so, I thought after I retire from the military, 'cause it was a little difficult.

We have had military people, Guard people, in the legislature, but they tend to be lower ranked than I was.

And so, it was a little difficult to be a high-ranked official, and then run for political office.

So after I retired, I decided that it was something that I've always had a passion for, giving back to the community, trying to help others of a bigger body outside of just my world.

And so, that's why I ran.

Had no burning issue, just wanted to give back to the state, give back to Wyoming, which I love dearly- - Sure.

- And hopefully, help things out.

- You grew up in Cheyenne, and at one time thought you might have a life in the world of physics, is that right?

- That's correct.

Yeah, my first, I enjoyed physics when I was first exposed to it in high school.

Went off to the University of Wyoming, and pursued physics, but after the first year, came to the realization that there weren't a whole lot of jobs in Wyoming that required a physicist.

You know, it's not like you can open your corner physicist store, right?

(Craig laughs) - I'd like to go in that store, by the way.

I think it'd be a lot of fun!

- I figured I'd have to, I'd be working for some big lab somewhere outside of Wyoming probably- - Sure.

- Or teaching it.

I guess you could teach physics, but I was not of the mind of being a teacher.

So my father was an architect, and I kind of liked what he did.

And so, I switched majors, stayed another year at the University of Wyoming to get some engineering, went off to New Mexico, got my first degree in fine arts, which was with a major in architecture and a minor in anthropology, and then got my professional degree at Arizona State.

- Talk about your architectural career just briefly here.

The coolest building that I've seen that you designed is the Gateway Center the University of Wyoming, but I'm guessing there are many cool buildings in your past.

If you had to tell me the coolest, which one would it be?

- I think that's, to me, that's the, was the most enjoyable project to work on.

It was a great design.

The University of Wyoming Foundation and Ben Blalock allowed us a lot of design flexibility to do what we wanted to do.

There's not too many buildings like that that Wyoming architects could do.

It was just a great experience, and I'm fortunate to have been the architect of record for it.

- Those of us in Cheyenne see the C-130s flying around all the time.

What, I guess, would you like people to understand about the Wyoming Air National Guard who don't live here, who don't see it day-to-day, who don't interact with the many men and women who serve in the National Guard, at coffee, or at a restaurant?

What would you like to tell the folks in Wyoming?

- And there's a lot of people in Wyoming that don't, because unlike the Army National Guard, all the air assets are right here in Wyoming.

We have a little bit in Camp Guernsey, but for the most part, they're all in Cheyenne.

All the Wyoming assets are in Cheyenne.

And so, a lot of people around the state don't get to see us, unless we actually go to their communities, and we used to do that.

It's been difficult over this last year with the COVID, but the Wyoming Air National Guard is a very important piece, I believe, to Wyoming, not only to our national mission, we do have a national mission, a federal mission.

We fly up 130s in hostile environments all the time.

In fact, we're just getting ready to see some of our Air Guard people come back here in March, I believe, but that we're deploying all the time.

But for Wyoming, both the Army and the Air National Guard provides a great service to our commander-in-chief, the governor.

- We're looking at you sitting in front of a beautiful background.

Tell us what we're looking at.

- Yeah, well, that's looking, that's at our family cabin, and it was a scene that was taken just shortly, just a little while ago, 'cause I was up there last week, and it's just between here and Laramie, around the Harriman area.

It's a beautiful spot for me just to get away from, and clear my mind, and you know, not have to answer cell phones, or email for a while.

(Stephan laughs) - Senator, I wanna talk with you a little bit more about the road usage charge, because to many it's maybe a little foreign, if you will.

Why not just tax me at the pump?

I've got to fill with gas anyway, and that'll pay, the tourists coming through, truckers coming through will pay, et cetera.

But I think that I have read that you're contemplating, and are looking towards the future, and understanding that, you know what, electric vehicles might be playing a bigger role in not only Wyoming, but our country within the next decade, or so.

So then how will that work?

People won't be going to the gas station.

How will we build our roads?

Is that one of the reasons why a road usage charge is maybe the right thing to consider in your eyes now?

- Yes, it is, all right.

You know, I've been studying this for the last two years, and I've been attending NCSL conferences, the National Conference of State Legislatures, their transportation forums and committees.

And it's become very clear and apparent to me that the gasoline tax, any fuel tax, is unsustainable in the future.

If you look at the gap, the curve of the difference between what will be funded by the tax, and what the cost requirement is to maintain roads, it's a curve that goes up and up and up.

And I forgot what the number was, but like in 2040, it's a multi-billion dollar difference.

- Gap is what you're talking about?

- Yeah, yeah, and so, and the problem is, it's multiple reasons.

Number one, our CAFE Standards have gotten better, right?

So per mile that you're driven on the road, you buy less fuel, okay?

So we've got more road damage, but you're buying less fuel.

And so, you're not providing the income.

Second of all, you know, it's been estimated that by 2040 50% of the vehicles on the road will be on alternate fuel, whether it be probably electrical, an electrical vehicle, an electric vehicle, but who knows.

Fuel cells are looking promising as well.

But especially with the intent to get us off of fossil fuels, there's a push to be all electric one of these days, or all non-fossil fuel vehicles.

And so, it's not gonna be sustainable.

And the longer we wait, we're gonna have a cliff out there.

The other idea is also that with a road usage charge, people, vehicles, businesses, whatever, would be charged based on their usage, okay?

Too many of us are always have been, you know, well, the government should take care of the roads, and I should drive on it for free, okay?

Especially in Wyoming, we're not used to tolls.

We're not used to paying to drive on roads, right?

But somehow, we have to charge the folks that are doing the damage.

So on a road usage charge, there is classes of vehicles.

I believe there's seven of them.

And some of them don't pay hardly any, like a motorcycle.

It doesn't do any damage.

But an 18-wheeler, you know, is in a higher class, and it does the most damage.

So they would pay a higher proportion than you or I.

The problem with it, and I think why it's gonna be an issue passing, is how do we determine how many miles you're gonna drive on what roads?

You know, a farmer may say, "I drive all my truck all the time "on my own private land."

- On a dirt road.

- On a dirt road- - I maintain it, yeah.

- And maybe I drive two miles on a state road to get to the other field.

But all the other time, I'm on property.

How do we do it?

Now, there's a way to do that with technology.

- Sure.

- We can geo-fence all the public roads.

But people have an issue with big brother knowing where they're driving- - Sure.

- So that's, there are a couple of states that are, Utah's doing it, Omaha, or, I mean, Oregon's got a pilot program, and there's different ways to do it.

You can buy certificates that say you can drive 10,000 miles.

And then, but then you've got to have an affidavit that says that how many of those were in state, how many, you know, 'cause they're, if you drive a lot of them out of state, you don't wanna pay Wyoming taxes, right?

So it's, that's the biggest issue is trying to define who the users are, and whether they've driven on our road- - Sure.

- And how we collect the data.

- You are currently a member of, and have been past president of the Young Men's Literary Club in Cheyenne.

And it's something you've told me you very much enjoy.

What is it, and what is your role in the group?

- Well, I, yes.

I've been a member since, gosh, I think it's 1999, or '98, or somewhere in there.

It's a refreshing club to me.

It's called the Young Men's Literary Club.

There's not too many of us that are too young, although we're trying to bring in younger and younger members these days.

It's a great, a great organization.

We do meet weekly, and for 45 minutes we debate topics.

Whatever topic we want is brought up on the club.

We have active and lively debate on anything from politics to world events, to, you know, sports, to religion, to whatever.

It's a free-for-all, and- - Civil though, I'll bet.

- Oh yes, it's very civil.

On occasion, we get passionate about our beliefs, but we're, it's always civil.

There, after we have our open debate, then a paper is called for.

Every member has to give a paper.

And it's on a topic that the program committee has selected for you, so you don't have a choice.

You research the topic, and give the paper, and- - Can you share with us what you have written about, what you have been assigned a paper on?

- Yeah, I've been assigned numerous papers over the years.

Yeah, I've written a paper about the fire up in the northeast corner of the state in 1910.

I've written about the proliferation of conventional weapons.

I've written on the Wyoming budget process.

I written on, this last year, I wrote on the, on Cyprus, and its, the division between the Turks and the Greeks on Cyprus, 'cause last January I visited- - Sure.

- And so- - And your heritage.

- Yeah.

Now, I actually did that, I did two papers last year, and that one was a voluntary paper, so I was able to pick the subject.

And there's just a, it's just a numerous, the topics are just amazing.

The program committee does a great job.

So the paper's given orally for 20 minutes, and then there's debate on that.

- Well, Senator Pappas, it's been a pleasure.

This is obviously a difficult session that has now started with the Wyoming legislature, and we look forward to visiting with you again.

I thank you so much for taking the time to visit with us on this "Capitol Outlook" profile.

- Well, thank you for asking me.

It was my pleasure.

- And as we begin this final segment in this Capitol Outlook, we're going to turn to two freshmen of the Wyoming Legislature.

It's my honor to be joined by Representative Karlee Provenza, and Representative Amber Oakley.

To both of you, welcome.

- Thank you, Craig for having us.

- You both decided to run for the Wyoming Legislature at a time of great fiscal concern for the State of Wyoming and at a time of COVID.

Why, why did you choose to run?

Representative Provenza.

- I think that the legislature has had a gap in some of who it represents.

I come from a background of economic insecurity, a family that has struggled with Medicaid and Food Stamps, and those perspectives seem to be missing in some of these conversations.

And so, in thinking about what we're facing, this huge problem, we need to have voices of the people who are most impacted by that, the people that are the most vulnerable.

And so, it seemed like a time that it was necessary to have that voice.

- Looked at your campaign video and I think people should take a look at it, you made a hard decision when you were very young that education for you was your way out of a tough childhood.

Am I accurate about that?

- Yeah, I mean, I distinctly remember saying, if I'm gonna be able to not live paycheck to paycheck, I've got to go to school.

And the only way to do that is through student loans, so I just invested in myself, I thought that that was my way out.

- Now working on your PhD.

- Representative Oakley, how about for you?

This is a time that is not the easiest of times to serve.

- Yes, thank you.

I think that's an interesting point, of course that was asked a lot.

Like, really, now?

I talked to legislatures from a decade ago and they said, it was so much fun legislating, we could, you want a million dollars, sure.

And not to make them sound irresponsible, but.

- The state was more flush at the time.

- We had money, yeah, and so I think what's important though is that actually during this fiscal downturn if you will, we can really discuss policy.

And I'm interesting in policy, I think Ms. Provenza is, and so you can really decide what is the role of government, what do we want when we actually have to tighten our budget, then you get closer to actual policy discussions.

- Each of you have, you are making and have already had made decisions about Wyoming's budget, and the Chairman of the House joined our Appropriations Committee, Representative Bob Nicholas said, as he was explaining the budget to you, he realized it was like drinking from a fire hose as you were trying to learn.

How have you educated yourself about the budget, how have you been able to be confident in a position so early in your career to make these decisions?

- Relying on people that know it very well to help educate us.

Looking to my colleagues, asking them about that, also asking folks who have made it kinda their career to focus on the budget and what does it mean, what's the golden rod, these aren't things that I knew walking in.

And fortunately, the Legislative Service Office has given us a ton of resources to be able to kind of walk us through the budget and how to make those decisions.

But you bring your values with you, and so what are we talking about when we talk about cuts or adds, and what do we need to do for the people?

And so I just keep going back to those values but then trying to learn as I go, I don't know everything yet.

- There's so much to learn.

- Representative Oakley?

- Thank you.

So, they did, the Appropriations Committee has been working very hard, they did get us the budget, a proposed budget about a month ago so that we did have the opportunity to spend time and go through it line by line.

But along with that, what you really learn is there's institutional knowledge and you just rely heavily on some of these people who do such an amazing, an amazing job, an amazing lift.

Again, the Appropriations, I personally have relied on Loyd Larson and Bob Nicholas and they're just such a fountain of knowledge.

And so that combination is what gets you there.

We've actually worked on the budget yesterday and they did such a fantastic job and made the difficult cuts, that yesterday, actually we had the discussion of we don't have to cut as extremely as we thought.

So let's say, we thought we were gonna have to cut $400 million well now we know we can be conservative within our means and only cut $350 million.

So yesterday, instead of feeling like we were gonna come in and do all the large cuts, the reality is, the Appropriations Committee already had that in front of us.

And we got to take some time and discuss the Department of Health, which really had some really difficult onerous cuts and we were able to not make those cuts if you will.

- Not sure the Senate is going to agree with everything that you've provided, as you'll see that process move forward and we talked about it earlier in the show.

Let's turn the page just a little bit.

Representative Oakley, I'll start with you this time.

You are right in the middle of trying to understand how Wyoming's K-12 future is going to evolve.

Part of that decision likely will become in implementing cuts to K-12 education.

What is your understanding about the impact of potential K-12 cuts that have come your way?

- Well, in the way of talking about cuts, I don't necessarily see that K-12 is different than every other state agency that has made cuts.

And by that, I mean everybody's feeling the pain.

I do think again along with the discussion that I just had, that we are going to be able to be less dire this year, I'm hoping so.

And I'll tell ya, I know it's controversial, heaven forbid, but there's a proposal in front of the House that is actually what I would say more of a true balance in that it addresses three separate things.

And it starts, it has cuts because it's basically, the policy being, that's what Wyoming people are wanting, some cuts not just to have a tax increase.

So it starts with some cuts, it also has if the LSRA, if our rainy day fund drops below a certain amount, then a one cent penny sales tax would go in and to continue to fund the LSRA, and it has a mineral severance tax included.

And if we can implement this, if the bodies want, there is at least a solution that could look at long term stability for education.

And so those discussions are happening and I think they're so important.

- Representative Provenza, what are your thoughts on K-12?

- K-12 education is not going to continue to survive in the way that it has, we need to figure out a different revenue stream.

We've got to find ways to raise money, we have to fund education.

It's in our constitution, the people of Wyoming value it tremendously.

I think if we continue on this path of talking about how to cut education, we're looking at lawsuits.

I know in my community, there's been conversations about if, if the cuts come in the magnitude that we've been talking about, we're looking at losing 60-100 people just in my school district alone.

And education is a big job's provider in this state, there's a lot of people that work for education.

So we're talking about not just our investment in the young people in our state and making sure that they can thrive with a quality education, we're also talking about the people that work there.

So I'm invested in trying to raise revenues, I want to see us diversify our tax structure, and ensure that we can fund education, we don't have to go to a lawsuit to do that, and we continue with the quality education that we have now.

- I want to ask each of you this question.

Being new to the Wyoming Legislature maybe, but maybe everyone should ask themselves this question, if Wyoming didn't have the fiscal challenges that it does, if it didn't have the budget crisis in K-12 that we're in, all those aside, my top priority would be, who wants to go first?

- I'll go first.

To some extent I'll admit that I'm probably not going to be answering the question directly, because I guess.

- You're an attorney, I guess that's okay, is that what I should take from this?

- If the premise is, we have unlimited funding, if you will, well, one of the main challenges about government of course is that that's not the case.

But, so to answer the question, my top priority, something that I would like to work on that I think is a real goal, is finding a way to have a healthy, sustainable Wyoming State Government.

I think that's really the challenge.

And of course we've been extractive industry mineral dependent, we've had the wealthy uncle paying the bills and we are currently looking at that that may not, that very well may not continue, certainly not to the levels that we've enjoyed before.

So with that, my top priority and my wishlist would be that we can find a way, again, to have a healthy, sustainable Wyoming.

- Representative Provenza?

- Yeah, I mean in a perfect world, I would fix our healthcare system.

People throughout my campaign and before have talked to be about how they can't afford their healthcare.

We've heard discussions all week regarding Medicaid expansion, I'd like to see how we could not just bring Medicaid expansion to the table and ensure that lower income folks can have access to healthcare, but just making it more affordable for everybody, taking care of our public hospitals.

And I also think that if we had this magic bullet, special bullet for our budget, I would like to work on jobs in Wyoming.

How do we create jobs in industries so that while we're moving away from the fossil fuel industry, that people can continue to have good paying jobs.

And how do we take care of folks that are maybe they're working in jobs they aren't getting paid enough in, we need to make sure that we can do that.

- Last question, and we have just about a minute or so here, but it's a hard one.

Representative Zwonitzer yesterday on the floor, essentially said in the midst of the budget debates, he goes, you know I've taken a look at our demographics and there will be no young people in Wyoming 15, 20 years from now.

Did you catch that and did it scare ya?

- Yeah, that's horrifying.

I'm a young person in Wyoming and its not that easy to find work here and raise a family.

And I don't want that to be the reality, because we have so much to offer in this state and I love Wyoming, I love our great open spaces, and I want to share it with everybody.

We need to find a way to keep young people here so that they can contribute to our state and so that we can contribute to them.

I think what Dan Zwonitzer said yesterday was spot on and I hope we can steer clear of that.

- Final word, Representative Oakley.

- Thank you.

Yes, it certainly is concerning.

I think one of the things that really needs to be understood is that we have a tax structure that is unsustainable.

So we talk about having young people come and stay and start businesses here, but as it is, the reality is, if somebody starts a business in Wyoming, we don't have corporate income tax, we don't have state income tax, we don't have a way in which they pay into government.

So that's why it's unsustainable.

So if somebody moves here and they have two young children, and they're not paying in, it's actually they're a drain on the state.

So, we really do need to look at the economics, so that we can make this a place again, that we can all thrive in.

- To both you, it's a pleasure to visit with you in person, glad the legislature is here in person in Cheyenne.

Thank you so much for joining us on Capitol Outlook.

- Thank you for having us.

- Thank you, Craig.

- That's a wrap for this week's Capitol Outlook.

We'll continue the tradition of introducing freshmen next week, and we'll certainly turn our attention probably more to education and budget issues again as well.

Thanks for joining us.

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