Wyoming lawmakers are in the front of a national trend of cutting or eliminating property taxes. But they face a challenge from activists seeking to save money for police, firefighters and libraries.
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There are efforts underway in several states to reduce property taxes. And in Wyoming, conservative lawmakers want to do away with all property taxes on homes. But some say that could hurt local communities that depend on them for libraries, law enforcement and emergency services. Wyoming Public Radio’s Chris Clements has the details.
CHRIS CLEMENTS, BYLINE: The idea of eliminating residential property taxes troubles Adelaide Myers. She’s a board member for a library system in a vast and sparsely populated county where people depend on their libraries for not just books but places to get online and write resumes.
ADELAIDE MYERS: This would be really bad for our counties, our municipalities, our schools, all of our districts to just take away property taxes.
CLEMENTS: Myers started a letter-writing campaign highlighting the need for property taxes. Lawmakers have already been reducing them, prompting budget cuts.
MYERS: We’re bending over backwards to keep these system – these libraries open, and our communities care so much that they’re making a lot of noise.
CLEMENTS: It’s not just libraries. Firefighters and other first responders are worried too. That includes Leighton Bergen, an EMT with a rural fire district. He envisions a dark future if property taxes continue to dwindle.
LEIGHTON BERGEN: Every second counts towards trying to save somebody’s life, right? Long story short, it would be – mean closing doors, maybe selling trucks.
CLEMENTS: But to Republican state Senator Troy McKeown, that sounds like Chicken Little.
TROY MCKEOWN: The sky’s falling. It’s all going to be over.
CLEMENTS: Wyoming already has low property tax rates, but not low enough for him.
MCKEOWN: It’s immoral. It’s an unconstitutional tax to begin with.
CLEMENTS: Some lawmakers, like McKeown, view property tax as rent. You pay the government for land you already own.
MCKEOWN: We got to pull back. And there are people who are one or two big tax hikes away from losing their houses.
CLEMENTS: There are efforts to reduce or eliminate property taxes in Wyoming, Florida, Montana, Texas, North Dakota and elsewhere. Anna Phillips is with the Washington-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which says it advocates for economic empowerment for all people. Phillips says some of the cuts are going too far.
ANNA PHILLIPS: These kinds of just broad, across-the-board cuts are essentially dropping the scalpel of the surgical approach that you would need in favor of a meat tenderizer.
CLEMENTS: An antitax sentiment has grown in Wyoming in the last 40 years as people came here from high-tax states, says Phil Roberts, professor emeritus of history at the University of Wyoming. Wyoming has revenues from coal mining and oil to keep taxes low, but Roberts warns against cutting property taxes too much.
PHIL ROBERTS: And it would be a change that may be fatal because the future is not that rosy for a severance tax when minerals will becoming less and less valuable.
CLEMENTS: Lawmakers propose raising the sales tax to make up some of the revenue that could be lost in property tax. In state Senator McKeown’s view, most local governments already have the money they need.
MCKEOWN: There’s plenty of money. It’s just since COVID and ARPA funding, everybody’s kind of gotten fat and spoiled.
CLEMENTS: That viewpoint deflates Adelaide Myers, who says she’s a Republican, like a lot of other concerned local leaders.
MYERS: What we’re going to end up with is a race to the bottom.
CLEMENTS: When the legislature meets next month, it’ll consider asking voters to eliminate residential property taxes in an election in the fall. For NPR News, I’m Chris Clements in Laramie, Wyoming.
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