Lawley's property tax awaits committee approval

After the first week of her first budget session, Rep. Martha Lawley (R-HD27, Worland) said, “It’s been a really exciting, kind of high paced week. And in my view, it’s been a pretty good week.”

Within the first week, the House saw the presentations of committee bills, personal bills and started initial discussions regarding the governor’s proposed budget.

PERSONAL BILLS

Lawley introduced House Bill (HB) 134, formerly known as HB 121, which makes amendments to the property tax deferral program.

According to Lawley, HB134 is intended to help an older population of people that may be unable to make continual property tax payments due to a fixed or limited income. With the bill, qualified property owners would be able to defer payment on their taxes until the property changes hands.

The bill passed introduction into the House and then passed through the House Revenue Committee. The bill will now go to the Appropriation Committee for approval, and then will return to the Committee of the Whole.

Lawley noted that there are a handful of other property tax reform bills that have been introduced, but Lawley said she will wait until the Revenue Committee makes their amendments to the bills before determining if she supports them.

Lawley’s second personal bill, HB148, which provides regulation to surgical abortions, was introduced and referred to the House Judiciary Committee. The bill would require surgical abortions to only be performed in licensed ambulatory surgical centers.

On Monday, Feb. 19, the House Judiciary Committee passed the bill.

COMMITTEE BILLS

Lawley is currently in House committees Education and Minerals, Business & Economic Development.

Out of the Education Committee, the Education Savings Account bill (HB19), narrowly failed introduction, according to Lawley.

HB19 would have allowed for families with children seeking non-public school education to receive $5,000 annually to help with associated education costs.

While the committee version of this bill failed, a similar personal bill from Rep. Ken Clouston (R-HD32, Gillette) was introduced and referred to the Education Committee. Like HB19, Clouston’s bill (HB166) would still create education savings accounts and provide families with $5,000 for non-public school education.

Lawley said she plans to propose amendments to HB166, but overall supports the bill and its intent to create educational savings accounts.

“I am hopeful that the bill will, in amended form, come out,” said Lawley. “I remain cautiously optimistic that we will get an education savings account out of this session, which is something I would like to see Wyoming do, and step out and begin to help parents who want different options for their kids, but in a responsible way that protects our public school system.”

On Monday, Feb. 19, HB166 passed out of the Education Committee. All other Education Committee bills passed introduction as well.

Seven out of the nine Minerals, Business & Economic Committee bills were introduced.

THE BUDGET

While the House is currently still early in the budget process, Lawley said the Joint Appropriations has presented their proposed changes and cut over $100 million out of the proposed governor’s budget. In the following weeks, the House will now go through the process of determining where else they can make cuts, how money can be moved around in the budget and other overall changes.

“There is still a lot of work to be done, and you know, I’m very focused on the fact that this is taxpayer money and we need to be responsible with the way we handle that money,” said Lawley.