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- Welcome to Capital Outlook, I'm Bob Beck.

It's the first week of the legislative session.

A lot of action so far.

We're going to talk about a couple of things that'll be upcoming.

We're gonna have a deep dive into the state budget and be joined by the co-chairs of the appropriations committee.

Senator Drew Perkins and representative Bob Nicholas.

We will also kick over and talk with the democratic leaders, Chris Rothes of the Senate and house minority leader, Kathy Conley about the budget, about the governor's state of the state message and a number of other things.

And we will also visit with Senate President Dan Dockstader and speaker of the house, Eric Barlow, as again, we'll review the state of the state message and talk about how we keep young people in the state of Wyoming.

Those conversations and more are coming up next on Capital Outlook.

Stay with us.

(patriotic music) - [Presenter] This program is supported in part by a grant from the BNSF Railway Foundation, dedicated to improving the general welfare and quality of life in communities throughout the BNSF railway service area, proud to support Wyoming PBS.

- [Presenter 2] And by the members of the Wyoming PBS foundation.

Thank you for your support.

- Welcome to Capital Outlook, I'm Bob Beck.

It's the first week of the legislative session.

And of course this is a budget session.

So we decided we'd bring our experts in to tell us a little bit about the budget process, as well as some other things.

Joining us from Casper, Senator Drew Perkins.

He is the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

And of course, Bob Nicholas from here in Cheyenne.

Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us.

- Glad to be here and thank you for having us.

- Let's start off, Senator Perkins.

And it sounds like to a lot of people in the state that Wyoming certainly got through COVID and I think there is a belief that you may have a lot more money than you really have.

Can you explain that?

- Well, it's been a very interesting process.

So over the instance COVID has started, there's been, as everyone knows, there's been a massive federal stimulus and massive federal spending to deal with the pandemic.

And quite frankly, the information we have is 8 billion has come into the state of Wyoming since COVID started.

Now, most of that did not come to the legislature.

It went directly out, it went to PPP, well over a billion dollars to Wyoming (mumbles) PPP.

There was 400 of the 500 million in the height of COVID that was spent out of the unemployment fund, 400 million of that was from federal money.

There were money that went out directly to hospitals.

There was hundreds of millions of dollars that went out directly to schools that never came through.

Note the governor of the legislature never had any power of it, but we've had two years where we've had a billion dollars of federal money come into the state that's been expended in various ways, trying to mitigate and recover from COVID.

- Representative Nicholas, We also saw the Craig numbers really improve and we saw oil and gas in particular do very well.

There's a lot of optimism where I thought a year ago, people were ready to jump off of buildings.

How optimistic are you though that this money will stay?

- Well, I'm optimistic that we'll be able to weather the storm, what we need to do and what we're trying to do is prepare ourselves for tomorrow because gas prices aren't gonna be at 90 bucks a barrel for the next two or three years.

We know that, and we know production will go down.

And so what we have to do is continue to limit our spending and live within our means, but take care of our folks in the meantime.

I mean, that's basically what our budget does.

- You made some tremendous cuts last year and how much of that actually came back in this time around?

- Well, it's hard.

It's apples and oranges because of the way the budget is set up.

Our total budget this year, all in is around 2.8 billion.

Last year was 2.4, 2.5.

The additive are a combination of a few different things.

One is the pay raises for states, for state employees, some saving dollars transfers, capital construction, other components that we're using, some of the ARPA dollar, some of the excess revenues that we have to cover one time needs in order to continue to spend and to build, and keep a balanced budget at the same time.

So it's a conservative budget on whole.

And we have to keep it that way because we know that the next biennium, the next biennium we could very easily be back in the same boat that we were last year.

- And Senator, that's exactly what Craig told you, that you're gonna have this short term bump, but as they look out, there's a little nervousness, especially with those oil prices, because they're going all over the place.

- Well, as you look, probably the only state that has a similar or maybe even more volatile revenue stream than Wyoming is Alaska and they've had their struggles as well.

And so having been through, been here long enough to be through some bus and some booms, you have to plan for the future.

Both the house and Senate, the members of general appropriations, I think pretty much understand that and have tried to do that.

Just to go back to the original point.

I actually looked at the numbers.

On traditional sources of spending, which are generally the general fund and a few things that are very similar to the general fund that basically pay for all of the operations of government, except for schools.

This budget is 18, 19, less than $20 million more than last year's budget after it was cut.

In fact, if you go back and look, last year was about 9% lower than what we were spending from the traditional non-school sources of funds from 10 years ago, from the, I think 2011-2012 biennium.

This one is still, just a little bit, still more than 9% lower than we were spending from digital forms, spending from just a few years ago.

On the other side schools from 10 years ago is, I think it's from last year is 212 million higher, but we've always put a priority on education.

We educate our kids, we try as hard as we can to educate our kids.

And although we argue about a lot, schools in Wyoming are still very well funded and that remains a high priority.

So the only source of the budget, it's a very restrained budget, except for where we take care of our kids and which is an investment in the future.

We don't want to short change the education of the kids in Wyoming.

- Representative Nicholas, one of the things I was, your brother was in the legislature for a number of years and held the same position of you and Senator Perkins, both.

But one of the things.

- [Senator Perkins] Not at the same time.

- Not at the same time, I think he would've liked to, though.

If he's watching, he'll agree with that, let me just ask you this though.

One of the conversations I had with him many years ago, as well as a couple of others was finding out what we really need in the state.

What do we need to run government?

So we don't, you know, we always just figure out a way to fund it.

How close are we to being at that position?

And I ask that because after you had to go through that really painful exercise last year, you probably have a pretty good idea of what we really need to keep and what we don't.

- We're pretty close.

Following up on what Senator Perkins said.

We have a balanced budget on the general fund side, with the actions of the governor and the legislature in the last two years, we have a balanced budget and we have the ability to make the pay raises for our state employees.

We still have a deficit, but it's not a billion dollar deficit.

It's closer to a 50 to 60 million annual deficit on the education side.

So we are close to at least for the next two or three biennium of being able to run government the way we want to and provide the services and live with our means.

Our biggest problem is five years down the road and 10 years down the road.

And so that's what our target is now and Drew and I are working on that in a couple different ways.

One of them is we're trying to move to an endowment model on how we manage our dollars.

This last biennium, last year, 27% of our general fund budget was funded by investment income.

Our goal is to, someday that's gonna have to be 35 or 40% as we have our declining revenues in the mineral industry.

And so that's one of our major projects going into the near future.

- And can you just talk a little bit about that?

And that's something that the house actually introduced, I think this week.

And so what you've got is a situation where you would take some of the permanent mineral trust fund money and invest that.

- I'll let Drew walk through it 'cause he's more of an accountant than I am, but the answer is yes.

- So yeah.

We have two very, very large funds.

One is called the common school permanent land fund, was created at statehood and so the lands and what was given, that statehood from the federal government to the state of Wyoming goes in there and it's for the support of the schools, constitution's very clear, the income and the earnings from that are to be used for the education of the children of Wyoming.

The other one was a creature of statute many years ago that my mother worked on when she was in legislature, back in the 80s.

And they put that and they had, the site that we have, we have an economy from minerals that is not gonna be there forever.

Once you mine it, once you pull it outta the ground, and use it, it's gone.

So they said, we need to take money and put that in the future, because we recognize that we're spending some of the inheritance of our kids.

And so they've done that, that's Permanent Mineral Trust Fund, and those two funds have, the constitution puts a certain amount of severance taxes into that Permanent Mineral Trust Fund every year.

And so that's been growing and we do that.

So what we've done is the whole thing is we now have several billion dollars in each of those.

And other things like the Hathaway Trust Fund and things like that.

Anyway, we try to do that 'cause we recognize we're trying to get these things to fund themselves going forward, including assisting the state government.

So the whole concept is to try and get this to where it works.

It's very understandable that anybody can compute what that income does, and everyone will know what the income does of that on a regular basis.

And we can plan for that at the same time that it will continue to grow.

So that as inflation goes up, as every year as it does that it keeps up with that and it will still always have a pretty consistent percentage of the budget paid for from these investments.

- It also strikes me that more revenue just generally, maybe through a tax or something like that could be useful down the line.

- It is, but as we've all seen in the current climate, I don't think there's, I think that most people look at this seriously believes that Wyoming needs substantial tax reform.

It's not about that you need more money necessarily.

It's about that our tax basis, our tax's based on 40, 50 years ago, based on energy and energy in the country is changing.

Whether we like it or not, it's going in that direction.

And we have to be prepared to change that.

So as the economy changes, that the infrastructure of government that takes to support the people and the citizens, as well as the changing economy, that adjusts with it, and it can pay for itself.

- And what you're essentially suggesting is there are businesses in the state that are obviously not contributing on energy.

- That's absolutely correct.

Energy contributes.

- 60, 70%.

- Two thirds of all the money that comes into Wyoming's coffers, the state of Wyoming's coffers comes from energy.

And those revenues climb, coal production is half of what it was 10 years ago.

Oil production continues to decline, the only reason you have it is because you have higher prices.

So we recognize looking at the future.

We are working hard on those changes.

- Representative Nicholas, also, I wanted to ask you, I mean, one of the concerns that a lot of people have is that our infrastructure could fall down again, and we're starting to see some things happen in that regard.

I'm curious if that's something you're worried about, and as you look towards the future, whether it's roads, whatever it is in the state.

- Our world keeps changing.

We now have an infrastructure bill coming from Congress.

That's gonna feed over $500 million directly into roads over the next five years with some matching components to it.

There's a bunch of other components to it.

Two years ago we were talking about doing a new tax 2000 to go back and talk what Drew was talking about, to realign on how we tax ourselves and how we operate.

So we can adequately fund government through the next 50 years.

COVID shows up, ARPA dollars show up, Cares Act dollars show up.

Now we have the infrastructure bill and what it does, it helps the problem, but it also kicks the problem down the road.

It really does.

And so we have to do the best with the money we have, and we have to do the best with the political climate that we live in and what we can actually get done through the legislature in order to get a compromise to fund what needs to be funded.

- Can I ask you, I wanna ask you guys about a couple of things that you're getting some pushback on, and one of those, you were talking about education and you and I have had these conversations before about how well you fund education, but the external cost adjustment.

That's something the committee didn't love the proposal that came from the education committee on this.

Why not give that because when you look at inflation and different things, there probably is gonna be an impact there.

- Well, and that's a good question.

And from the outside, it looks like those, I was gonna say those cheap somethings, but anyway.

- [Bob Beck] Thank you for not saying that on camera.

- That's right, but my wife would be mad if I said that, but the other side of that is the federal government, just a year ago, put out.

There's been a series of them, the SR1, SR2 and SR3 which are the acronyms for the federal acts that put out the money.

There was $305 million of which about $270 odd million went directly, that wasn't appropriated.

It came straight outta the federal government and came to the state treasury and was allocated out among on a federal formula directly to the schools of Wyoming, over $270 million.

And so those funds went out into the, and so it's not that we don't recognize our increased costs, but there's also been substantial federal money.

And that's not the only money schools have gotten because of COVID relief.

We believe, as a general appropriations committee, that there was adequate money to do that this year.

And without having to do the full cost adjustment this year, that was a decision of the JC.

We'll see what happens when we take it to our floors.

And if our members agree with that decision.

- Suicide funding, I know the governor, I think, came with the Senate maybe, but talked a little bit about getting, I think, $7 million into a suicide prevention fund.

Is that something you think the committee might be open to re-exploring?

- We are funding suicide prevention in the ARPA dollars.

There's two or three different programs out there.

I think the key is consolidating them together so that we work cohesively at one time.

So we can have 24 hour, essentially, reception.

And I think the funding, there's two or three amendments coming out that are gonna address that.

I want to go back to the education component of it.

So we funded a component of the ECA, roughly 10 million.

We did that because our model requires us and our expert report says, this is what you need to do.

But our report also says we don't need to, because we're already paying higher wages than any state around us because of how we funded the model through this time, we can stay within the model and remain constitutional with the actions that the appropriations committee took.

As you know, last year, we were so far apart that in trying to resolve the education funding model, that it just caved in on itself.

The good news is we were 300 to $800 million off on the respective sides.

Now, because of the increase in oil revenues and all the new additions for different funding models for both education side and the general fund side, we're 50 to $60 million a year apart.

So we're in a position we could actually fix this because that's not enough money that we should be divorced forever.

We have an opportunity to fix it.

And my guess is that there'll be a strong push to do it next year in the general budget, because we have the opportunity to do it, whether that happens or not, who knows, but we continue to try to find a solution.

And the good news is that we're coming closer and closer to the middle.

So it's more likely, I think now than ever that we'll find a solution for funding it.

- The American Rescue Plan Act or what you've been calling ARPA.

That's gonna be discussed here very shortly.

And I want to ask you just, maybe you could tell folks about some of the highlights in there and what you were hoping to use some of the money for.

- Well, overall, we've tried to look at a number of things.

We've tried to look at, and there's, there's three or four different kinds of ARPA money.

And so when we talk about that, some of that came in for revenue replacement that you could actually replace money that you've expended on COVID-related expenses.

And so that acts just like what we call general fund money, the general checkbook of the state, and then there's some, what do they call, Section 604 dollars which are dollars that can be used just very tight, certain capital construction, multi-use facilities, mostly essentially broadband, 109 million there.

And then there's another 535, 525 million dollars of what we call direct ARPA.

Which means it has to be expended, it can't be saved.

It's very difficult to build anything lasting with it.

They are intended to be grants out to deal with effects of COVID.

And so, in doing that, we've tried to have a theory of taking care of some immediate needs that are directly related to COVID, that we're still having the lingering effects and continuing effects from COVID.

So trying to take care of some current needs now, trying to also look for the midterm, trying to find some things to support our existing industries, our existing businesses, and things like that.

And then also trying to apply some of this money into the future and trying to look at how do we transition?

What do we transition to as we move into the rest of this century and beyond.

And so there's, just really quickly, we've allocated or set aside in the budget, proposed to the rest of the legislature, 100 million to look at some very interesting projects for a hydrogen hub to create hydrogen fuel out of natural gas that the governor's been working on very closely with Idaho and Utah on.

That if it comes out, maybe it's gonna be somewhere in the west, we hopefully can get that Southwest Wyoming.

Another thing, the federal government's coming out, there's going to be a very large carbon capture, an underground storage facility.

It's gonna be partially funded by the department of energy.

Looks like it's gonna be maybe probably in Wyoming or in New Mexico.

And so we've put 100 million dollars in there for those types of things that are big game changers moving forward for the state of Wyoming.

So that if the governor works that and they need the state matches there and available for the governor to have to apply.

So that's one of the things we've done.

And we've also looked at, there's some very interesting things about using coal for something besides fuel, using it for construction project or things like that.

We tried to invest some money in that to continue that.

And we're just, trying to do a number of things to take advantage of this bump in revenues so that we're trying to put some money in those accounts for future, for savings accounts and generate income forever for Wyoming.

So we're doing a number of those things.

I'm sure I've missed some, and we can ask Bob which ones I missed.

- So going back to the total number roughly is about 1.1, $1.15 billion, which is just remarkable if you think about it, just to have that and decide what to do.

So the governor put together the strike force, they came up with over $4.5 billion worth of potential projects around the state.

The governor then came in and made a recommendation.

And he basically on the ARPA direct, 292 million that he allocated to be appropriated.

We modified that, and that's just the upper direct side.

And we're basically now at about 380 million on various different projects, spending more than the governor in some things, particularly in savings.

But also then funding some of the projects he wanted.

And then some of the projects that we wanted.

So we're in the middle of that process.

That bill is now going through second or third reading on the Senate side.

And that's exciting stuff.

So how is all gonna play out?

I know that there are many bills out there for reaching in to give more, but we're already down to basically by about 110 or 100 and, well, less than that, 70 or 80 million left of the direct dollars and even less on the remaining amounts.

So it'll get to see how that all plays out.

But I think what we tried to do in the Senate and in the house, as far as appropriations, was take care of immediate needs, some intermediate savings and then some long term savings and the hundred million and other projects like that, where we literally can try to make a difference for the world 5, 15, 20 years down the road.

- House Appropriations Chairman, Bob Nicholas, Senate Appropriation Chairman, Drew Perkins, a pleasure having you, thank you for this deep dive and welcome back to the program.

- Thank you, Bob.

- When we come back, we will hear from the democratic leaders of the Senate and house, stay with us.

This is Capital Outlook.

(triumphant music) - Welcome back to "Capitol Outlook."

I'm Bob Beck.

We're going to have the leading Democrats of the Wyoming legislature join us right now.

We have Representative Cathy Connolly who is the minority leader in the House and Senator Chris Rothfuss who is the minority leader over there.

Welcome both of you to "Capitol Outlook."

- Hi Bob.

- Thanks Bob.

Good to see you.

- Well, let's start off and talk about the governor's state of the state message.

Representative Connolly, your thoughts.

Was it inspiring for you?

- Well Bob, inspiring might go a little bit too far.

(laughs) I did appreciate the governor's emphasis on talking about the importance of state workers, what state workers have been able to accomplish and do throughout the pandemic in particular, and the need for increases in salaries for state workers.

(sighs) It's crucial.

Right now, state workers are below the median of other states for comparable jobs.

We are losing, if not hemorrhaging, good workers.

The governor in his state of the state said that 20% of state workers are working second jobs.

We need to do better, but I also think that we need to increase teacher salaries, and that wasn't included.

The increase in salaries is just for executive branch employees, community colleges, and UW, so let's include teachers in there as well.

So I appreciated that.

On the other hand, I thought that the governor's comments about the relationship of Wyoming to the Feds when it comes to energy policy was a bit in the wrong direction.

We should be at the table.

We should not be spending our time just criticizing the Feds.

- Mm hmm, senator?

- Yeah, I agree with those comments.

One other thing that stood out to me was, with regard to a discussion about healthcare, while not mentioning Medicaid expansion in any way, the idea that putting together a task force somehow is a solution on healthcare and providing better access to affordable healthcare for the people of Wyoming without even realizing that, while there is an option that's readily available, 38 states have already adopted it, including many Republican states, and we keep refusing.

We just don't need a study to know what the right answer is.

- What is it going to take to get the Senate on board with this because in particular, I look at votes, and I don't see the necessary votes over there.

- Yeah.

I think there's a lot of misinformation in the Senate, and when I continue to have conversations, private conversations, with some of the senators, even after all this time, they don't seem to have the appropriate set of facts.

At the same time, there's honestly still just this nagging animosity towards the Obama administration which obviously was the beginning of the Medicaid expansion.

So even though it makes sound economic sense that that legacy political baggage seems to be holding people back, I do know that the public in the state of Wyoming through poll after poll supports Medicaid expansion, and so I believe that, at some point, the senators will realize well, if the people of the state of Wyoming want it and it makes sound economic sense, maybe we should go with Medicaid expansion, and I'm hopeful that this could be the year.

- Well, you know, the problem with the budget session of course not only the 2/3 issue that you have to deal with, but it's always right before an election, and that's always, if you're gonna do it, it's gotta be that other year it seems to me.

- Yeah Bob, that argument, we hear that argument, too.

It always bothers me because it's either an election year or we have in a 1/3 of the body is new, and so it's not great because a 1/3 of the body doesn't understand and is not up to speed, or it's an election year.

We've just gotta do the work.

- Let's talk about, well of course, it's a budget week coming up here next week, and you've seen the budget.

I'm curious, your thoughts on what you think about the budget and what maybe is missing?

- Yeah, well, I guess I'll start here.

- Go ahead.

- The budget is a pretty flat budget.

The budget could have been better in my mind, and even though kind of the rhetoric that's out there right now is that this is a good budget, we're gonna spend more of our time just looking at the ARPA money coming in, the reality is we have cut so much from state agencies and needed programs that go out to citizens in the state and our communities, we could have and should have done a whole lot more with looking at where we should backfill.

I'm really concerned about community mental health, for example, suicide prevention, all of those services that the state funds through the budget were cut years ago.

We could have done more, and we will, we should.

- Yeah, I think there's a shocking lack of vision in the budget when we're in a situation where we're fortunate to have resources that are provided by the federal government through ARP funding, and we also have this boon of good mineral prices that we didn't expect.

So, we have the ability to invest in our future at this point in time, to invest in our people, and to identify priorities that might allow us to continue the revenue in the future and continue to thrive.

We really don't have that, and we don't see that through this budget, and that's disappointing.

At the same time, we're once again in that situation where we were bailed out, this time by the Feds.

We won't thank the Feds, to be clear, right?

There will be no thank you card sent of appreciation.

We'll still rail against 'em, shake our fist, and complain at everything they do, but at the end of the day, we got bailed out, and we can at least realize that for the next couple of years while the budget is flat, we're not making any more draconian cuts, but at the same time, that budget leaves us in a place where we don't have to solve the problems that we've known are there year after year.

We don't have to confront revenue, we don't have to provide flexibility and solutions for our cities, towns, and counties to raise their own funds, we don't need to prioritize that diversification of the revenue base.

So yeah, there's not a lot that we see right now that's good in the budget, and honestly, even the proposed raises aren't raises.

They're meager cost-of-living adjustments that won't even keep up with inflation.

So, I wish there were more, and I wish there were there were more aggressive approaches to us moving forward as a state.

- Yep.

- Yep, I'm sorry.

- Can I just add to that as an example?

We heard and we understand.

I mean, Chief Justice Fox even talked about, in her judiciary speech, about what the needs are, and the needs include having- If we wanna keep people outta jail, we don't want the expenses of DOC which we don't, then what we need is community mental health.

We wanna address issues of juvenile justice.

We need more prevention and treatment in our communities.

That's an example of where we know what the problem is.

We honestly know what the solution is, but we don't have a budget that rectifies that problem where it really could have.

- I will say we've had some appropriations committees over the years that that have brought a plan or have had a member that has brought ideas, but generally, they're grinders.

They get in there and they take the governor's proposal and go from there.

So, some of this blame on Governor Gordon for not looking at some of these issues that are maybe right in front of him.

- Yeah, absolutely, absolutely because the governor has the first vision.

I mean, it begins in October, November, December with discussions with state agencies before it goes to the Appropriations Committee.

It's the governor's ideas that start it.

- And I'd say absolutely, but at the same time, there have been appropriations committees that have brought vision.

There have been legislative leaders that have brought vision through the joint appropriations committees that we've worked with over the years, and in the absence of any legislative vision, in the absence of any executive vision, we see a budget that, while there are a lot of folks that will laud it for being flat, does not move the state forward.

- One of the things that really seems to be necessary here in the state, as you talked about just a second ago, is mental health and having a good, broad vision about mental health.

What do you see in this session that might get to that?

- Go ahead, Cathy.

- So last year, we passed a bill that, honestly, I did not support about priority populations for mental health services, and again, that being the kind of notion that the pot is fixed, there's more demand on that pot of money for mental health services, so we need to prioritize those who get it.

So this term, what we're doing is actually slowing that down because of the recognition that that will take time to implement properly, and honestly, to kind of think very seriously about what our role is as a state in terms of providing those kinds of services in our communities.

So, that's a good step.

That bill should not have gone into effect right away, so we've pushed that out a couple of years.

Other than that, I'm not seeing a whole lot that's positive where we really should be doing more and better.

- We've had discussions about suicide prevention as an example of that, and there was even an amendment yesterday to provide our backed funding for suicide prevention, a hotline effectively, and that was shut down by the Senate with just a few million dollars, so while we talk about it, the focus always seems to be more about how can we do this on the cheap than how can we do this effectively, and that's been true, not just in mental health, but a lot of what we've been doing over the past few years, and that's not a healthy way to look at this when we have real problems.

Wyoming is, I believe, once again, worse in the country in terms of our suicide rate.

We spend most of the time either at the bottom or second to the last place in terms of our suicide rate, but we somehow want it to be cheap.

We want a cheap and easy solution, and if we even spend a dollar, we want someone else to match it or pay for it, and this is the same problem, I think, that we have with mental health.

We don't spend a lot of time in serious conversations about what is the best way for us to address mental health issues in the state of Wyoming where honestly, things like Medicaid expansion, there's your simple, low-hanging-fruit answer.

If we can and bring in nine federal dollars for every dollar we spend, that would be a great solution.

We're not looking for effective outcomes.

We're looking for cheap.

- Another issue that I want to ask you about is just kinda how you see redistricting playing out on your sides.

The process has started, and don't wanna get too specific as we do tape some of these interviews, but how do you think this is gonna play out over in the Senate, Chris?

I'm curious, do you do you see additional legislators being added, or they come out?

- I think that, and I'm hopeful that, the House does hand us the 62-31 map.

I think that it eases a great deal of the tension, and if you spent a lot of time during the interim looking at maps and trying to figure out what solutions are available, it is a rational solution to the problem.

Now, when you come over to the Senate though, and the priority, once again, is let's be cheap and small and lean as opposed to let's be effective, there will definitely be some pushback just based on the fact that well, we're growing government.

My counter to that is we're growing representation.

We're growing it slightly because it is a better approach to representation for the state, but that's not good enough for everyone, and then I have heard that there are some concerns with the map and largely by folks that weren't involved substantially during the interim, and of course, that's going to take place.

We'll see some turmoil, but I don't know whether that turmoil will end up snowballing into changes or whether it'll just be heard, and then we'll end up basically back with what the House sends.

It'll be interesting to see.

- It's probably helpful that Senator Driskill was a co-chair of that, wouldn't you think?

- Absolutely.

Senator Driskill, as the majority leader and as somebody who was involved in the entirety of the process, obviously, as chairman of the Corporations Committee and ended up supporting that 62-31, I believe will be helpful, and I'm hopeful that the rest of the Corporations Committee will support the product of the Corporations Committee, although I know all members will.

- There are so many interesting individual bills that have been pre-filed, and I don't know how many are even gonna get through because you've got a lot of work to do, and already, I see when you get the budget and as well as redistricting together at the same time, that's gonna steal an awful lot of time, but is there something out there that just absolutely has to pass in your opinion that you've seen?

- Hmm, as an individual bill, hmm.

- Realistically, probably not from my perspective.

I think there are some good bills, but I don't know that there's anything that has to pass that we've seen, and that's probably good.

We're in a position where there are a lot of bad bills.

There are a lot of time-wasting bills in a session where we do constitutionally have to deal with redistricting and the budget.

Those should be the priorities, and I'm afraid we'll end up wasting a lot of time where we need to be spending that time in other areas.

- So Bob, you had asked about individual bills.

I do think there's some committee bills that need to pass or that they would be good for the state.

Like, we talked about vision and the budget not having vision.

The Wyoming's Tomorrow Bill, for example, a bill that came out of the Joint Education Interim Committee that allows for and sets up a mechanism for adults 25 up to be able to go back to college, go to community college, the university, and have something kind of comparable to a Hathaway in order to help them complete that program.

That's visionary.

I like that bill.

That's a bill I'd love to see pass, for example.

- Yep, very good bill.

- Okay, I wanna ask you about the juvenile justice reform measure that's out there that is starting to work through the system.

One of the things that I think I've covered for a long time, probably since the '90s.

We have always had this problem.

We're finally getting to the point where we're getting data.

That's a start.

I know there's some proposals.

I think something maybe you're even working on to do a little bit more there.

Could you talk a little bit about that?

- Well, the bill that's out there is a Judiciary Committee bill that will collect data in ways that we don't have right now, and so that's always a good step, it is, but we have known for years, for years, what we need to be doing, and we're not doing it yet.

And I hate to keep on saying the same thing, but it is about community mental health, it's about support to families, it's about opportunities for kids, and it's about not hurting them rather than helping them.

We need to have reforms to our foster care system.

We need to not vilify, for example, trans kids where we've got a bill out there that could result in that, for example.

We need to have a whole lot more emphasis on prevention services and opportunity that we don't right now.

So, the first step is getting data.

That's a good step.

The next steps will be things like making sure that our juvenile justice system kind of meets minimum requirements, which right now, we don't in some communities.

It's probably better to be kind of closing rather than expanding kind of facilities, things like that.

- So getting more facilities out there seems to be like a a huge key because it's really hurting the counties driving these long distances to get people some help.

- So in those kind of facilities or services in communities rather than having, honestly, boys school and girls schools, which are juvenile prisons.

- This is again a case where we're focused more on budget than outcomes, and if we were focused on what is in the best interest of our children in the state of Wyoming, we would be doing things very differently, but we just look at the bottom line of the budget year in, year out as the first priority, so we end up doing studies instead of taking steps.

- Wanna not let you leave without talking about the House discussion on representative Dan Zwonitzer which is something that sort of came outta nowhere on whether or not he was in and out of his district.

We'll be talking with your colleagues, your other leadership members, on the Republican side about that here shortly, but interesting issue, and to come from a Republican Party to go after one of their own, I don't know that I've seen in some time, but your take on that and the House's response to that.

- Well, I truly believe that Representative Zwonitzer was targeted by his own party.

There's no two ways about it actually.

It came out of the Republican Central Committee.

Where people live and how often they live in homes has really not been an issue, and we certainly know of many people, especially retired folks, that have houses in wherever, Arizona, Florida, wherever, and come back and forth.

So the targeting of Representative Zwonitzer seemed pretty clear to me, but the question about process and how it was handled and what happened, I think, went as good as it could honestly.

The leadership decided that there was no process in place that needed to be followed, given our rules, and so that we needed to do best by what processes we had for other issues.

We went forward with it, and it ended up being an afternoon that was set aside where there was one motion to set up an investigatory committee.

That motion was defeated.

Representative Zwonitzer stood up and said, "There's no more information," and I'm sure you haven't seen it because you're on the Senate side, but we had pages and pages of documents.

We had pages of complaints that the documents then related to, There was no more information, so the vote on the investigatory committee went down.

The body was given an opportunity to have other motions, and they could have from expelling Representative Zwonitzer to censure to anything else.

No one brought those motions, and the matter is now done.

- It was very interesting to watch that process play out.

Do you sense that the state party leadership is not having as much impact on the legislature as they would like?

- Well Bob, the fact that we had those complaints and they were dealt with, they did have impact.

There's no two ways about it.

We haven't seen something like that before, and so on one hand, you're implying they might be licking their wounds.

I could think of them more as saying, "Well, look what we made them do."

- Very interesting.

- Waste of time.

- Well, thank you so much for joining us, Senator Chris Rothfuss and Representative Cathy Connolly.

We'll be chatting with you, I think, towards the end of the session, and you'll give your summation of how things went.

Good luck for the rest of the session, and thanks for joining us.

- Thanks, Bob.

- Thank you so much.

- When we come back, we will be talking with the Senate president and the speaker of the House.

Stay with us on "Capitol Outlook."

(dramatic music) - Welcome back to Capitol Outlook.

Again, I'm Bob Beck.

We have the leaders of the House and Senate joining us again, Senator Dan Dockstader and Speaker of the House, Eric Barlow.

Welcome both of you back to Capitol Outlook.

Let's talk a little bit about the governors State of the State message if we can.

What did you hear?

what excited you, if anything?

- The call to come back, come back and protect the mineral industry.

He used a well known quote just twisted around a little bit.

And I say twisted around to the better asking our President to tear up his energy plan.

That energy plan, Bob, has destroyed our state and we need to come back and put everything back together and put people back in their jobs and do what we do best in Wyoming is take care of our our mineral industry but all above as well, solar, wind and now nuclear.

It's time to rethink it but we have to have that as our basis.

- I think certainly for representing Campbell County and the energy bread basket of Wyoming and the nation, energy is certainly important.

He also looked at the future of energy too not just the nuclear, but also the hydrogen he mentioned, et cetera.

So I think that this approach that Wyoming should be and can be a player, not with just legacy energy sources, but with the future, I mean, that's powerful.

And the other thing that builds in that and I think he recognized a company out of my community that is part of the manufacturing, part of gearing up, part of employing the specialty folks that can get these things moving.

So I think it's a combination of things and I think the governor laid it out quite nicely that we still care about ag.

We still care about our tourism and we want to get those things right.

And energy is obviously important too.

So I thought it was a nice message about the future of Wyoming.

And, and certainly, I think you're gonna see a lot of what we do in this budget session is supportive of that, supportive of that Wyoming vision.

- One of the things he did also talk about and it's not a new topic at all but young people in the state leaving the state of Wyoming and what we can do to keep them and attract them.

I'm curious both of your thoughts on that particular topic as you legislate, as you look at different things in the budget coming up that we can do.

What is the solution from what you're hearing from young folks that would keep them here and keep them engaged in the State?

- They better be here and already in position because they won't be able to afford a house if they come back.

That's my biggest concern.

But for the first time, we've have our, our tech companies, our telecom companies seeking employees.

And that's an opportunity to bring our people home, problem is finding something affordable unless they have a connection with the family already in our area.

Same with our teachers, can they find something affordable but we're bringing them back home as we can in teaching positions, in telecom positions and in tech positions.

Our high school built, added on a tech wing with private dollars and are preparing mechanics for the tech industry.

We have open positions right now.

One of our tech people, our auto repair people said, I'll put five, six maybe even nine back to work in my area.

This is, he has several dealerships on the Western side of the state.

He says, I just need people to come home.

- Mr. Speaker?

- Well, so I'll just refer to my own family.

I have two children, one of them has two small businesses in Wyoming, saw opportunity and went out and is getting it done at 20 something.

And my daughter, a couple years older, she did leave the state for a while, but in service of the state for Senator Enzi working in DC, and then then subsequent Cynthia Lummis, Senator Lummis, and then saw an opportunity to come back to the state.

So I think if we continue to build the opportunities that the good President was talking about, the children, our children, and our grandchildren, they'll be places they can find that they can fit in, it'll work.

Now, are there communities where it's more challenging?

Certainly there are.

Does our unemployment rate give you the sense that there are opportunities?

Absolutely.

Because, there's a lot of help wanted signs out there.

So I think there's opportunity.

Now, how do we make them?

I think we gotta make 'em part of it.

Part of the solutions.

There's kind of a, you know, I always defer to my grandfather and the elders et cetera.

Well, we gotta get those younger folks involved in these policies that we're talking about, engaged in it because, the technology stuff?

That's not my realm.

That's not, they're the ones that understand that.

How does that become part of this economy?

How does that become part of the fabric of what brings people back?

And I think that, I think we are seeing that.

We are seeing those young entrepreneurs engaging in our communities.

- One of the things though, I was at the Governor's business Alliance and talking to some businesses and actually put together a story.

But one of the things I also heard from some of the younger people there is what continues to concern them maybe some attitudes in the state, some unfortunate things that come up in public meetings and are said are we really, is everybody welcome in the state?

Is that something we can do something about at the legislative level?

- Welcome them into the state?

I would hope that would be the case wherever they may be.

We try to do that.

And I spoke earlier, bringing back those who grew up here but there are others seeking a wonderful place to live but it kind of creates a bit of a problem on the Western side of the state because they come in and and the cost is no issue.

In fact, they'll pay more sometimes in the cost and that while we, we are welcoming them in, it causes a bit of a rift because they could afford much more than those who have spent their whole life here, working hard.

- I think one of the things they've gotten that was brought up to me is maybe attitudes towards LGBTQ people, concerns about lack of amenities and austerity measures that sort of thing.

- Yeah.

So I think that, and the President you know, there's tangible things.

And then there's the more ideologic and quality of life things.

Certainly in my community, we've had those tensions where there's some issue or something that comes up.

And generally I think the community, if it's out there and people are actually talking about it I think they get resolved in the community and people get to a place where it's not driving the conversation.

And then as a community, as a whole, if you build out those amenities, quality of life things, and have those accepting environments for young families young people and young families, I think you get past those.

And then if those folks aren't part of our community in our community, in the fabric of community how are those things gonna change?

How are we, how are they gonna influence it and how can they help us as communities learn if they're not part of it?

So, my encouragement would be whether it's the employment side, i.e.

opportunities or it's the quality of life or it's some of the more broad acceptance and community type issues, we gotta have them part of the conversation to make those adjustments or realize those challenges.

- Well, the President raises this great issue and he's brought it up a couple of times on the whole housing matter.

You know, I knew that Jackson folks were hopeful but once again were unsuccessful with the real estate transfer tax issue, but, are there things, what can we do about that situation?

I see communities, a number of them are trying to look at this but is there something we can do from the state level on that?

- At point it's a little bit early.

I hope we can.

I've attended several meetings in Jackson on that very issue toward the, the housing facilities they have, impressive one bedroom places that people could live.

Outside, it's a little difficult, no sidewalks.

You open blinds into the neighbor's wall there.

but here's an example, and I'm just trying to remember the rough numbers nearly 400 apartments, and they had just four or five applicants, or they had four or five applicants for, let's get this right, there were about four or five openings in 400 apartments.

And it was just difficult to, how do you fit them in?

Who gets first choice in there?

How do we make this work?

It's not improving at this point and the cost is beyond what a regular person can pay out there working in the service industry.

And even now to the point, well-paid teachers are not able to afford a place to live in Jackson and soon around the region too.

- Another issue that I wanted to ask you about, I know in the budget and I should declare conflict of interest in this, cause I would be one of those who would benefit from it.

But state employee pay raises are being talked about and as I was looking at our station Facebook page, one or two of the comments address the fact that wages throughout the state are too low in many instances and maybe need to be addressed.

What about that issue?

Is that a concern?

Is that going to keep us from growing and moving positively as a State?

- I've got something and you do as well probably, for example, I'm just looking at our Wyoming highway patrol and all those who support them.

It's not affordable anymore to be in one of the most respected positions in the state of Wyoming, a Wyoming highway patrolman.

I just got word overnight, we're probably gonna lose three more on the West side of the state because they're done just trying to make it work under those financial circumstances.

- And I think to extend what the President is saying is it's not that they're leaving the State they're leaving it for either private employment or other government, cities, towns, counties that have maybe more flexibility and more revenue to track these quality employees.

When a snow plow driver in Wright, Wyoming is less than $20 an hour starting wage.

And the mine is on the same road that they're driving by and plowing at much better wages, how do you compete with that?

We're in a unique place.

Now that's always been the case, but we seem to be falling further and further behind in more categories of important categories.

Professional categories, attorneys whether it's the Attorney General's office or our own legislative service office but also in the folks that actually take care of the basic needs of our state, the basic services, important basic services include education, including the safety and and welfare of our citizens.

Talk about DFS, our DFS workers, taking care of those vulnerable children and those challenged families.

I mean, hardest job probably in the state of Wyoming and probably the most important job in the state of Wyoming one of the most important jobs and we're having challenges keeping folks in those positions so they can do that incredibly important work.

- I'm gonna change topics, I wanted to ask you what is behind some of the still remaining concerns about Medicaid expansion from both of your sides of the aisle?

- Well, I don't know, we're on the same side of the aisle just different ends of the house, but you know, the Medicaid, first of all, it's a budget session.

Introductory votes, two thirds.

It's on the house side.

It's a committee bill.

As you know, it's passed outta the house once time with just over a majority.

So you have a conversation about, should you take it up as another loss valuable if it doesn't make the threshold, the vote threshold?

Is it an important discussion?

Absolutely.

I voted for it last time.

I voted for it because I haven't seen anybody else come with anything that actually supplants it or does anything better than what it's offering right now based on where we are.

So, I continue to visit, I know folks are in it.

I continue to visit with the, the committee chairman Chairman Harshman, and the advocates saying, how do you wanna approach this?

How do you wanna approach this?

I believe, I mean, I've already voted for it.

I'd like to vote for it again.

You know, I don't know how my Senate colleagues as a collective, I'm not asking, and Senator Dockstader where he is on it, as a collective how they would respond to it.

But it it's challenging, but the folks that don't want it, what are the alternatives?

In the past five years we've done several things, direct primary care.

That was a bill that I helped draft on when I was on the labor health committee and then the home healthcare sharing ministries another option, actually an option that I take advantage of now, because it's a more affordable way to access, you know, kind of a catastrophic type approach.

It's not perfect.

It doesn't offer the level of benefits that Medicaid expansion would or private insurance.

So I don't know what the alternative is right now to Medicaid expansion because the folks that are not interested haven't provided it yet.

So for me, I think we need to continue having the conversations but I want it to be successful conversations.

- We have about a minute.

- Simplify it.

Our side of the building don't see the votes here at this point.

Their concerns are what they're hearing from States who already have it and the added expenses that have come to then.

- Okay, well, thanks to both of you, Senator Dan Dockstader and of course, Speaker of the House, Eric Barlow.

Thanks once again for joining us on Capitol Outlook.

- Thank you Bob.

- Thank you - Thanks for watching Capitol Outlook.

Again, we'll be back with you next week with a look back on the budget session discussions, as well as redistricting.

Lot to talk about, join us then (dramatic music) - [Announcer 1] This program is supported in part by a grant from the BNSF railway foundation, dedicated to improving the general welfare and quality of life in communities throughout the BNSF railway service area.

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