Fire accounts for bulk of governor's supplemental budget requests

Wyoming was succeeding in its mission to return to a path of financial stability until faced by one of the worst fire years in the state’s history.

This is the message of Governor Mark Gordon’s proposed supplemental budget for the next year, which requests $140 million for firefighting and restoration efforts.

“Fighting these fires exhausted our total biennial allocation for fire control within a few months instead of two years,” he wrote.

“I am not sure any of us imagined all of that capacity would be used up that quickly.”

In his message to legislators ahead of the 2025 general session, Gordon said that the budget this year was intended to ensure the state’s “long-term fiscal stability” while winding down the various “serendipitous, but inflationary, federal programs” that were established during the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim, he wrote, was to return Wyoming to “a more customary path” after years of economic volatility.

“Frustratingly, 2024 turned out to be one of the worst fire years in our history,” he wrote.

Gordon refers to the numerous large fires that began to rage just as the fiscal year began – starting with the Haystack fire that threatened Hartville and Pleasant Valley and the House Draw, Constitution, Remington and Flat Rock fires that devastated Johnson and Campbell Counties.

These were followed by the Pack Trail and Elk fires, the latter of which burned along the front of the Big Horns and threatened the watersheds and communities of Dayton, Ranchester, Big Horn and Sheridan.

In total, 1900 wildfires consumed nearly 850,000 acres during the year, and two of them rank among the top three worst fires in Wyoming history.

Fire suppression costs for 2024 currently exceed $56 million, Gordon wrote, which exhausts the Emergency Fire Suppression Account – including funds left over from previous years. It has also exhausted the Wyoming Office of Homeland Security and Governor’s contingency accounts, obligating Wyoming to access the $20 million fire borrowing authority from the Legislative Stabilization Reserve Account.

Replenishing the fire account and contingency funds isn’t just important for future fire control, Gordon wrote. It may also be needed for flooding, snowstorms or other emergencies that arise.

Gordon has also asked the legislature to also consider one-time funding in the amount of $130 million to assist in recovery efforts after the fires. The needs, he wrote, include defending burned land from invasive grasses, recovering watersheds, remediating wildlife habitat losses and providing targeted assistance to impacted families and businesses.

“Wyoming is one of only five western states that does not have a state-funded disaster recovery program to address disasters that do not meet the requirements for federal disaster assistance,” he wrote.

“To rectify this, I propose a one-time use of funds that would otherwise have gone to savings in order to address the recovery assistance made so necessary by this year’s wildfires.”

Additional Requests

Additional requests within the supplemental budget include $10.5 million for the Department of Revenue to address the fact that the total refunds to taxpayers through the expansion of the property tax refund program were underestimated.

Gordon has asked for an additional $7.5 million for the Attorney General’s Office to continue the pushback against “federal overreach into states”, particularly overregulation and restrictions on Wyoming’s ability to access natural resources.

He also requested $2.5 million for data acquisition, modeling, science and advocacy for protecting Wyoming’s waters.

Gordon has requested $9.3 million to cover the costs of housing prisoners in out-of-state facilities and local jails due to a lack of staffing within the Department of Corrections.

“The department believes it can resolve this issue within the next year, but still has to pay the cost of housing prisoners elsewhere,” he wrote.

In an attempt to address the closure of several labor and delivery services within Wyoming hospitals and prevent the trend from developing further, Gordon has requested $2.4 million to be added to the Department of Health Budget, divided between state general funds and federal matching funds. These will be used to increase Medicaid rates for providers, as Medicaid births account for around a third of Wyoming deliveries.

Gordon has also requested $11 million to continue fighting invasive species on private and state lands, such as cheatgrass.