(rousing music) - There aren't many Democrats in the Wyoming legislature, but state Senator Mike Gierau of Teton County is one of them.

He serves on more committees than any other Wyoming lawmaker, but that's what's required if the super minority Democrats wanna make a contribution to the budget session.

I'm Steve Peck of Wyoming PBS.

Join us now for Capital Outlook.

(rousing music) - [Announcer] 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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- [Announcer] And by the members of Wyoming PBS.

Thank you for your support.

Senator, welcome.

Thanks for being with us today on, what I will say on camera, on short notice, so extra appreciation to you.

How long have you been in the legislature?

- Well, Steve, this is my, let's say, I served two years in the house from District 16 in Jackson, and now I'm starting my second term in the Senate.

So I'm on year eight- - Year eight.

- Of service and my term will be up in two years.

- Now, as you mentioned before we went on the air, you had previous public service time before that, including elected office, right?

- Yeah, so Steve, I served four years on the Jackson Town Council, and then six years on the Teton County Commission.

- And also had the experience with the Wyoming Association of Municipalities, that's WAM.

- Yeah, WAM, I served on the WAM board as a quite a long time ago as a young councilman and as we were speaking earlier off camera, I really, we didn't have Leadership Wyoming, which is a terrific program that we have now, but that was my indoctrination to a leadership Wyoming style.

I got to see the state, and especially being from Jackson, a lot of folks in Jackson don't get out around the state as much as they should.

It's a real tragedy because when you learn about Wyoming, when you get a chance to be in Wyoming and be out outside of Teton County especially, you get a great perspective and I think it served me well.

- You're in the Senate now.

I've been in the house before.

but there are two senator, two democratic senators in a body of what's now 31, right?

- 31, yes and we're two.

So we call it, it's a super minority, and we know but we like to say that we punch above our weight and I think we bring a perspective to the body, and I think sometimes we, as we talked earlier, I think we a good perspective and some people are surprised to learn, it's a pro-business perspective.

I'm a small business person, have been for 47 years in Wyoming and that's important.

And I think that sometimes because of a narrative that people hear, they don't think of a pro-business Democrat.

But today in the legislature, I'd say that the Democrats are really, really espousing the virtues and the virtues for hardworking Wyoming families that a lot of whom are small business people, and we're fighting for their interests here.

And sometimes now that's getting lost in the kinda overall Washingtonesque kinda gotcha game politics that seems to be now enveloping the Cheyenne, which is very, very sad.

- What expectations can you have as a Democrat in the legislature these days?

What do you try to accomplish?

- Well, Steve, actually, our expectations are boundless and they always have been and that's why I'm proud to be a Democrat.

I think that we put people first.

We work for working families, we're looking for solutions for them, and what that encompasses is teacher pay, good pay for teachers.

We're just talking about the external cost adjustment for teachers.

Our Republican friends wanted to cut it, only provide it for one year.

Say, we'll talk about it again next year.

Well, why?

Your joint appropriations committee, of which I'm one member and Trey Sherwood from Laramie is the house representative.

- Another democrat.

- Another good democrat.

Along with the rest of the members all voted for that.

And that's a good Wyoming value.

And so, now with a extremist agenda, some folks are saying, let's cut that, let's cut funding.

We just had an argument up upstairs this morning about some of the folks there with their extreme agenda wanted to cut funding for schools.

And we're saying, why?

We've got money, we've got a need.

Let's take care of things for our working families.

You know, Steve, we need so many things for folks so they can work, there'll be no families who are working two jobs.

And they need good healthcare, they need good schools, they need good pre-K education.

It's another battle that we're fighting right now is to fund pre-K education to a better level so people can send their kids.

We know that for every dollar we spend on pre-K education, that returns us $8 in cost savings.

When those same kids get in to K through 12 schools, we can identify problems early, we can correct them before they become problems that are too hard to solve or very expensive to solve.

- You necessarily, as one of the few Democrats, have to do a ton of committee work, would you mind telling us, and if you need your visual aid there- - I do.

- What committees do you serve on?

- And both visual aid from the electronic and my sight here?

- [Steve] Yes.

- My assignments.

Now remember if most of my friends that are on appropriations just serve on appropriations.

My committee assignments this year, Regulatory Reduction Task Force, I'm the co-chairman.

Management Audit Committee, Senate Appropriations, Senate Journal, Senate Rules and Procedure, Senate Travel, Recreation, Wildlife, and Cultural Resources, Select Committee on Capital Investment in Financing, Select Natural Resource Funding, Select Water, and State Retirement Board.

- Some committees have might be considered to be more important than others but a handful of those that you just mentioned are big ones.

And as you say, usually if you're on appropriations, for example, that's considered plenty enough committee work for one person.

Does anyone else have that many assignments?

- Not that I know of, Steve.

- And you have to do it if the Democrats are gonna be represented on these committees.

- And that's the issue is you don't get it, if we don't serve and Senator Rothfuss, Chris Rothfuss minority floor leader from Laramie, he serves on Education and Minerals, two big media committees where he served with distinction for over 14 years and he serves on other committees as well.

And he's the co-chairman of Blockchain Task Force.

Those are big lifts.

For me, Capital Financing and Investment and Appropriations take up a lot of time with over $26 billion in assets on deposit.

That is a big committee as far as helping with the direction and making sure that our treasurer and other state officials, our other four elected state officials have the tools that they need to do that job running the investment shop.

And they do a terrific job.

And so, helping them do that and then just appropriations, which spends a lot of time, this is a budget year.

Your appropriations committee spent a lot of time working on working on a budget and now we're working through it.

- The budget session shorter than the general session yet with this enormous job that has to be done.

A lot of the budget bills that I know you and other committee members with both parties worked on in the interim didn't get the immediate introduction that typically would've been expected.

How's that impacting the session and so far, and how will it affect it going forward, do you think?

More work here and now I presume.

- Well, we're right in the middle of it right now, so it seems it's a difficult time.

It always is in budget years.

This year the leadership decided to kinda front load the process a bit.

I think what they saw was that the bills that come that needed 2/3 majority to be heard really got short shift if we did the budget process in the middle and I don't think it was to the betterment of either product.

But now we're in the middle of going through a front-loaded process and I think the jury's still out, if it's any better than the way, this newer way, is it better than the old way?

I'm not so sure.

There are some pluses to it, there are gonna be some pluses to it next week.

The last two weeks I think are gonna be a lot better, but I don't know if it's worth the pain of what we're going through right now.

We've had some late nights.

- For those who aren't familiar with the process, why will the next two weeks be better than this week, for example?

- Once the budget gets in the rear view mirror and it goes to conference committee to work out the differences between the house and the Senate, then we'll have a chance, both bodies will have a chance to dive into bills and the subjects that did get a 2/3 majority.

So, one would assume that those are priorities beyond the budget that we need to work on, and we'll be able to dig into those and there's a number of issues on the table.

And so, we'll be able to work through those, hopefully at the pace that that'll give a little more attention.

The budget itself was given a great deal of attention by the appropriations committee and we worked hard on the budget and the governor was, governor gave us a good budget.

He really did and hats off to him.

We have disagreements, the legislature has disagreements with the executive branch but you know, I think I've noticed that we worked together like never before.

And the house and the Senate I think have worked together.

Now, there are elements in both bodies, both sides that think that some of our work fell a little short of the mark in their eyes, but they're working through the budget and that's the way our process works.

- You're from Teton County and one of the big issues, non-budget issues, although it's certainly money-related of course is the property tax discussions have been going on for a couple of years now, there are, am I right in saying maybe a half dozen bills dealing with that pre-file that you're working through now.

Teton County, of course, is generates more property tax than any other county.

I think, I'm not gonna say than, maybe than any other two or three counties combined.

Maybe it's more than that, as a percentage of the total property tax revenue, it's huge.

What, I'm assuming that's some added insider perspective that you bring to the property tax discussion.

Is that fair to say?

- It's very fair to say, Steve.

I can tell you the folks in Teton County have been screaming about property taxes for many years now.

And now that as property values are starting to rise in the post-COVID time around the rest of the state, folks in Teton County are now starting to look around the rest of the state and hear the concerns of folks in Park County, in Northern Lincoln County, and Sheridan, and here in the capital city, Laramie County and Cheyenne, and saying, welcome to the party.

We're glad you're with us because now it's starting to affect them.

But folks in Teton County this year are gonna send $81 million back to school districts in our collective funding model that is mandated by the courts.

So $81 million and there are a couple other recapture districts, and they're recapture districts because of their mineral wealth.

Teton County, it's about the value of the land in and of itself.

So we're talking single family homes.

A lot of them are second homeowners who are wealthy, who live in our community and have just noticed a alarming rise in their taxes.

But for people that have lived in Teton County for generations, it is a crippling, crippling blow that's forcing them out of their homes and we have to act.

As you know and as you were just alluding to, there are many bills on the table and my answer right now is a simple one, pass them all, but let's be smart about it.

Let's put a three-year sense set on each one because right now, as we sit here, Steve, neither one of us know which ones are gonna pass, which ones aren't, and maybe more importantly, in what combination.

Brenda Henson at the, the director of the Department of Revenue, I think upon hearing me say that it's probably gonna stroke out and I don't mean to, she is a terrific and an excellent leader for our good department as on all our state employees are hardworking folks.

And the folks in the revenue department are gonna have a little bit of a tussle to try to come up to feed in all these tax proposals and which ones curry favor.

But if we put a sense set on each one, say three years, we'll be able to look at the data as these tax breaks start to come in, and then we'll be able to see which ones are really effective, maybe which ones are less effective, and then we can decide which ones are the best for the people of Wyoming.

We also have out there a citizens, a specter of a citizens' initiative.

We don't know how that's going to interplay with anything that we do.

So, when I say putting a sunset on it, all I'm saying is that we need an off ramp to make sure that what we do is right for Wyoming, everybody in Wyoming.

We've got school funding, we've got other services.

The Department of Health people are concerned about alarming suicide rates with our young people.

And healthcare choices that practically are non-existent in this state.

We need to do better and working families need that.

And so that's why we need to be cautious.

But from my perspective in Teton County, we need to act.

- Well, most of the legislators I've spoken to so far are zeroing in on one or two property tax preferences for them.

You're saying why limit ourselves?

Let's see what's possible.

- Exactly, Steve, and I just don't know.

I've got some that I think are compelling.

I think Representative Crago has some interesting proposals.

I think there's a couple on the senate that have some merit.

I haven't really fleshed them out because I've been working on the budget.

And so that's been my main focus.

But that's once again, these last two weeks, we're gonna be able to dig in and we've got, I think on the Senate side six tax bills coming our way from the house and we've got a couple of our own.

So we're gonna spend a couple of weeks and really go through this and say, what does each bill do?

And I know actually what does each one do and what's best.

I know that my friends on the Republican side, caucus just this morning about those tax bills and they're going to, you know, they were discussing it.

Frankly, I don't see why we were excluded from that discussion, I didn't know why, but hey, that's their business.

The Democratic folks, what they wanna do is they're gonna do what's best for working families.

They are gonna do what's the biggest bang for the buck.

And since we're talking about it, let's talk about what the Democrats have already done.

Former representative Andy Schwartz and I worked for years on a program that was actually started by Representative Clarene Law, who's of a storied member of this.

- Legendary.

- Legendary member of this body.

- Legislative.

- And we lovingly called our little old lady program, but it's a tax rebate program for seniors on fixed incomes.

Just three years ago, like at zero funding in the round of cutbacks and that we were going.

Through this year we were proud of the fact that the governor recommended that $20 million go into that program.

And today, over 10,000, in the last year, 10,000 people applied to and got tax relief.

Those are the neediest of the needy, the people on fixed incomes who really needed tax relief.

In my own county, Representative Yin passed the bill to set up a county option program that our county commissioners opted into, put a couple more million dollars in.

So the average senior tax payer on a fixed income in Teton County got somewhere between a 4,000 and $7,000 rebate.

Still not a total tax rebate but a significant tax reduction for them.

Now folks are saying, "My gosh, how that much money?"

Well, that's just a portion of some of the taxes they're paying.

- I was just gonna say, many people in Wyoming who might be watching this don't have any idea what those property taxes really are.

- It's absolutely- - And for people who live in relatively ordinary housing with relatively ordinary incomes yet because of where they live, it's a life, can be a life altering sort of.

- Absolutely.

We've got, we've had and that's why this program is so important.

And thanks to Mike and thanks to Liz Storer, thanks to Andrew Byron, the Teton County delegation, and Senator Dan Dockstader, all who serve with distinction regardless of party, working hard on those programs, working hard to make sure that our seniors are getting the relief they need.

And so now we're gonna talk about how much we can do for folks, the rest of the hardworking folks in Wyoming and how we can target to them.

And so, and Representative Storer and Senator Dockstader have a constitutional amendment coming up the next general election ballot to pull residential property out of our regular property tax rate structure.

So then we can single out and target tax relief to them once again.

Then when we have these bills, then if we have another tool in the toolbox, then we'll be able to decide which ones are the best that fit into those parameters.

The rest can fall by the wayside organically and then we can get the tax relief that people want.

That I think is a good comprehensive approach that I think will curry favor with both sides.

- In the time that we have left, I wanna ask you about the neck tie you're wearing.

What is it and why are you wearing it today in particular?

- Well, this afternoon, Steve, we're gonna be working on a budget amendment to direct the proceeds, $100 million proceeds to the Common School Fund account for the sale of the Kelly Parcel, which is in- - Yes.

Quickly tell us what that is.

- In Grand Teton National Park.

Well, 101 years ago we had a fight over Grand Teton National Park.

All politicians were against it.

Man who led the charge was a fellow named Cliff Hansen, who was a county commissioner at the time.

He went on to become our senator and our governor, This tie was his tie, it's a tie from the Grand Teton Lodge company.

His family gave this tie to me and you know, we're kinda big on history around here at the Capitol.

And so today when I'm up talking about reaffirming that commitment to the national park, I'm wearing his tie because he fought that same fight and he was on the other side.

But even he came, when I went to his door when I was campaigning for county commissioner, he said, "Boy, it was the greatest mistake I ever made."

The park has been a good deal for Teton County and for Wyoming.

And hopefully this afternoon we're gonna reaffirm that, - I believe that he would want what we're working for today and that's to reaffirm America's greatest idea, the national park.

And to do so in a responsible way and to put $100 million into the account for the school children of Wyoming, which is mandated in our constitution.

- At which point the Kelly Parcel would become- - Part of the Grand Teton National Park.

It's surrounded right now by the park.

Senator Gierau, thanks very much for your time.

- It's an honor to be here.

As always thanks.

- Governor Mark Gordon opened our Capital Outlook season a couple of weeks ago with a lengthy interview.

So lengthy in fact that two topics important to the governor didn't make the original broadcast.

One was the RIDE Education Initiative he launched last year with State Superintendent Megan Degenfelder.

The other was a series of town hall meetings he's conducting across Wyoming on the subject of mental health.

Here's what the governor had to say on those two topics.

(rousing music) and I noted you spent a lot of time in the past year and I noted you spent a lot of time in the past year traveling from community, community talking about mental health in Wyoming.

What were you stressing during these trips you were making?

What were you telling the communities that hosted you?

- Well, it is interesting.

The 988 hotline actually was a kid that was with my kids in school who was a counselor now in his maturity.

And he said one of the biggest challenges we have is when people call the National 988 hotline, they're running into people that know nothing about Wyoming, don't know where Otto is, don't have any idea where Ethete might be or anything like that.

And so it really kind hollow.

And so we were able to, over the last couple years, to get a domestic 988 number in place.

The results have been remarkable.

You know, 90 over 95% of the calls have been resolved without having to call those precious EMS or police resources.

They've been resolved successfully.

And people are saying, let's stand this up full time.

Of course, something I asked the legislature to do last year, they failed to do it.

I'm asking them again this year.

I hope they do do it.

But what our town halls were about was to go out into the communities 'cause the legislature, this is a perennial issue for Wyoming.

We don't have enough counselors, we don't have enough resources.

We need to be able to meet people where they are.

This is not only from just sort of folks that have a problem and wanna be able to discuss it with somebody to Title 25, people that are involuntarily committed somehow and then released.

And what we wanted to do was to get out around the state and listen to people.

And it's fascinating to me.

Every single one of these meetings has been dramatically different.

- Really?

- We started up in Powell.

It was exciting to see the groups that were assembled there that were trying to work on this.

When we got down to Rock Springs, it was a lot more personal expression and there was some concerns that we hadn't really heard some of the problems in the system there.

Wanna let everybody know that's watching from Rock Springs, we had a meeting afterwards with the county commissioners and others that really expressed those concerns.

So it was an information gathering thing, but I can't say that there was a consistency between each of the, each of the town halls other than the fact this is a big issue, we need to work on it.

And so, we're gonna continue working that in the coming year.

It is amazing to hear the stories and also the progress that's being made.

There's a great out of Dubois, Dan Starks up there has done a great job of kind of helping veterans, talking to veterans get going.

There's a wonderful out of Pinedale and elsewhere in the state, the Jae Foundation talking about let's do a boot-check.

How are you doing today?

Just breaking that stigma of I'm tough and I can do it myself.

So there's good stuff happening there.

- When we spoke last year ahead of the legislative session, superintendent, State Superintendent Degenfelder was just coming into office and you talked quite a bit about the new RIDE, the RIDE initiative- - Right.

- That you're working with her.

Now it's been, being implemented for about a year.

How's that been going?

- Well, it's slower than I'd like, but we do have pilots out around the state.

There's obviously some, there's always gonna be a little bit of discussion.

I think it's important to recognize that RIDE really was developed at the local level.

It was informed by educational experience and thoughtfulness.

But it's teachers, parents, local businesses that have been engaged in this.

So the RIDE initiatives have really, the pilots are out there and they're starting to work.

The reports are good for the most part.

I think there are probably some growing pains, but I'm really excited about the fact that we not only are gonna meet students where they need to be and it all corresponded I think with the superintendent's approach, the Board of Education.

We finally took a good deep look into education and said, how do we make it more relevant for our students?

Not because we wanna just feed them important information, we want them to be engaged and wanting to find work and jobs, and be well educated as good citizens.

And we looked at that and we saw maybe there's a different way.

So we'll see how this pans out.

I'm very excited about it at this point.

- Well, speaking as the husband of an elementary school teacher, I can tell you it is being talked about.

Local educators know about it, thinking about it, and looking forward, I think, as you said, to implementing it over time and seeing the good it can do and hoping that it does.

- Yeah.

Well, thank you.

- Governor, I know we could spend a lot longer talking, but you, I get the impression you're a busy man and so you have other things to do besides speak with us today.

But I appreciate the time very much and best of luck to you in working with the lawmakers as the session convenes and as your second term continues.

- Well, thank you.

- And always a pleasure sir, and thanks for being with us on Capital Outlook.