Governor vetoes one property tax relief bill while signing others

The Wyoming Legislature recently passed five property tax bills and Governor Mark Gordon has signed HB0003, “Property tax exemption for long-term homeowners,” HB0045, “Property tax exemption-residential structures and land,” and SF0089, “Veterans ad valorem exemption-amount” into law. 

Originally presented to Governor Gordon were five bills, three of which were modifications to existing law, and the other two were new bills. 

House Bill 3 passed, which is a new exemption and was for senior citizen exemption, which is for long-term homeowners or their spouses, who are at least 65 years old and have paid property taxes in Wyoming for at least 25 years. If the homeowner qualifies, then 50% of the assessed value of their home will be exempt. Also, those who qualify are military personnel who “declare Wyoming as their domicile.” This will take effect in tax year 2025 and sunset in 2027. 

House Bill 4 also passed and is a refund program, which is a current program managed by various counties’ treasurers’ offices. The program is being modified by expanding its qualifications based on income. The program went from 125% of the median gross household income for the applicant’s county and was expanded to 145%. The bill created tiers of amounts to get refunded, meaning the less income the homeowner makes, the more refund they’re entitled to. 

Senate File 89 was a bill for veterans exemptions that is also a modification of existing law that doubles the amount of exemption from $3,000 to $6,000 and will go into effect in 2025. 

There were two homeowner exemptions. Governor Gordon signed the homeowner exemption House Bill 45, which puts a cap on homeowners’ properties and would exempt annual property tax increases over 4%. The state constitution says that properties have to be valued according to the market. Yet recently, property values have increased from 16% to 20%, thus this bill provides the exemption. For 2024, the bill includes just the residential single-family structure only and in 2025, this bill will also include land associated with a structure. There is no sunset to this bill. 

However, Governor Gordon vetoed Senate File 54, a new bill, which was to go into effect in 2024. The bill was set to exempt 25% of the fair market value of a single-family residential structure up to $2 million. Duplexes, apartments, commercial or industrial properties would not have qualified. No one would have had to apply for this exemption, the county’s assessor’s office would have automatically applied this themselves. This bill was to go into effect in 2024 and sunset in July 2026. The state legislature was to refund the counties for this, therefore, the counties would not have lost money from this bill. 

In Gordon’s veto letter addressed to Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray, he said, “This bill would have only provided a temporary and very expensive tax exemption to all Wyoming homeowners at the expense of other taxpayers in our energy industries, retail and manufacturing sectors. Universal property tax ought to be universal, not simply advantage property owners at the further expense of other taxpayers. As a note, voters will have the opportunity to amend Wyoming’s Constitution this fall to create a new classification for residential properties which would allow our Legislature to work more comprehensively on a more durable, balanced, and less ad hoc solution for the issue this bill seeks to address.”

Governor Gordon also said, “This bill could be considered an example of the electioneering exuberance of the recent legislative session. Feel good policy that overcomes common sense. A sober assessment of what is Wyoming’s best overall interest is called for. One which recognizes future generations should never have to pay for our own self-indulgence.”

Later in his letter, Gordon said, regarding his veto of Senate File 54, “Such a wealth redistribution scheme would be a socialistic-type of wealth transfer, mostly from the energy sector, to Wyoming homeowners. The Bidenomic-type of “tax relief” in this bill is what I would expect from Washington, D.C. liberals, not conservative Wyoming legislators.”

The plethora of House and Senate bills in the legislature this year was in response to the significant increase in property taxes that were being placed upon homeowners.

Hot Springs County Assessor Daniel Webber said, “After COVID, from 2021, 2022 and even carrying into 2023, we saw a huge influx of people and, in effect, it resulted in a large jump in property values. The demand for property was really high throughout all of Wyoming. From what I understand, in other states in the West, people wanted to move to more rural locations. That resulted in a 16% to 20% jump in value in some places for the last two years. It has slowed down this year. But it’s still higher than it was pre-COVID as far as the demand and the increase in values. Obviously, people got upset because their property taxes jumped so much. So these bills are a response to that. People wanted a way to contain those increases so it wouldn’t be so high.”

Regarding the Governor’s veto of Senate File 54, Webber said, “I was in favor of this bill being signed by the governor and I am disappointed that he did not do so. Although temporary, it would have provided immediate tax relief for the residential property owners in Hot Springs County, while a long-term solution could be worked on.”

Hot Springs County Assessor Daniel Webber is available to answer any questions about the new bills and provide an understanding of property taxes at 864-3414. The HSC Assessor’s office will notify the public when to take action regarding applying for property tax relief.

At press time, Senate President Ogden Driskill and House Speaker Albert Sommers say they are considering asking the Wyoming Legislature to reconvene for a special session to deal with the property tax relief bill Governor Gordon vetoed.