News
Kinskey Responds to Legislature Failing to Pass Special Session
Published
10 months agoon
By
Aaron Palmer
Wyoming legislators, in a vote finalized Sunday night, failed to get enough votes to secure a Legislative Special Session.
In a release from the Legislative Service Office, the official tally received from lawmakers was 16 “aye” votes and 15 “no” votes in the Senate; and 27 “aye” votes and 35 “no” votes in the House.
Pursuant to Article 3, Section 7 of the Wyoming Constitution, a majority of members elected to both houses must vote for a special session. Therefore, there were not enough votes received to call a special session.
State Senator Dave Kinskey, in a release, said the failure to get enough votes to call a Special Session was a lost opportunity.
“I am disappointed there won’t be a special session where we could have passed, again, over the Governors veto, a major property tax cut that would have taken effect immediately. Double digit tax increases – for 3 years in a row – threaten seniors and family homeowners. Immediate relief is needed and could have been delivered in the special session. It will now be at least another year of crippling tax bills before we can act. A tragic, lost opportunity to do what is right for the people.”
Dennis Fox
April 1, 2024 at 4:30 pm
It’s much like a gold mine. Gov’t keeps the gold and we get the shaft.
That’s why it’s critically important that we vote to lower taxes whenever we get the chance.
Lower Taxes Are Always Better.
Vote against the Cap Tax, and we drop our sales tax to 5%.
The sales tax is the ONLY tax we have direct control over.
Vote For Lower Taxes out of self-defense.
Michael Johnson
April 2, 2024 at 6:54 pm
Gee. Do we listen to a guy that stands on the corner holding signs that say the “sky is falling, the sky is falling” or Wenlin Liu, a chief economist for the Wyoming Economic Analysis Division that states that “Sales tax is probably one of the most important — sales tax plus property tax — to revenue resources because we don’t have income tax,” Liu said.
The state’s general fund receives 39% of sales and use taxes collected, while the remaining 61% goes to local governments.
How does the city of Sheridan utilizes sales and use tax?
Wyoming Economic Analysis Division statistics indicate Sheridan County collected about $2.8 million more in sales and use tax in FY2023 than FY2022, an increase of roughly 5.5%.
As more sales and use tax revenue comes into the city of Sheridan, it has a variety of uses. City Administrator Stuart McRae said the city has been able to save additional money in its rainy day fund, currently sitting at about 75% of its goal for the savings account.
Mayor Rich Bridger said the sales and use tax funds go toward the city’s general fund to help pay for various projects and city employee salaries.“(It) gives us more funding to work with so we can put it towards different projects that we might have not been able to (fund) beforehand,” Bridger said.
Projects moving quicker with additional funding include the Kendrick Park pool, North Heights water line and a study to replace concrete chutes along Goose Creek, Bridger and McRae said.
Credit to the Sheridan Press November 2023 for the facts stated above.
Dennis Fox
April 3, 2024 at 5:34 pm
Statist only look at the big-gov’t “spending” side of taxation.
Real Americans, since the Boston Tea Party, always see the full-picture of the destruction that all taxes cause.
Inflation is at a 40 year high. Prices of food and fuel are thru the roof. People in Sheridan County are hurting from record-high property taxes and they need some kind of relief.
Since the legislature is unable to help us with meaningful property tax reform, we have no choice but to defensively, vote ourselves a lower 5% sales tax.
We need lower taxes and we need them now.
Voting ourselves a temporary break from the current 6% sales tax isn’t much, but it will help struggling families and seniors. Surely our high-tax, big-spending fellow rep’s and neighbors will understand the huge need for lifting the current tax burden.
It matters not what “pie-in-the-sky” gov’t programs the gov’t dreams of…we need OUR money in OUR pockets right now.
And since it’s only “A Penny” I’m sure the gov’t can get by for a while, without it.
Michael Johnson
April 4, 2024 at 10:30 am
Thankfully the citizens of Sheridan County are intelligent, forward thinking folks that see what the optional sales tax does for the communities. We always have a few negative thinkers like Dennis the Menace that pops up on the street corners preaching doom and gloom but thankfully those folks are few. This is just another thing he can blame on the County Commissioners.
Sheridan County citizens have voted in favor of the One-Cent Optional Sales Tax continuously since 1988.
Roads, Infrastructure, Public Safety, Parks and Pathways, Senior Services, Community Development, and many other projects and services are funded in part by the Optional One-Cent.
Optional One-Cent Sales Tax is collected only on items subject to sales and use tax. It does not apply to most food purchases, rent, real estate purchases or gasoline.
According to the Wyoming Office of Tourism, more than 12 percent of the Optional One-Cent Sales Tax is paid by out-of-county visitors and tourists. Optional One-Cent revenues are used as matching funds to obtain grants, allowing Sheridan County and surrounding municipalities the opportunity to complete infrastructure projects and community improvements.
Sheridan County sales tax is currently 6 percent, the same as 17 other counties in the State of Wyoming. Only 5 counties are lower.
Dennis Fox
April 4, 2024 at 11:24 pm
The benefits of Lower Taxes are almost endless. What would you do with the $10,000 you’d save just by lifting that one percent tax burden?
Last time voters came within 1,000 switched votes of lowering our sales tax to a more reasonable 5%. Closest we’ve ever come. And that was only the first time we had a yard-sign campaign. Imagine the future when people see the on-going damage of Bidenomics and realize all they have to do is vote themselves a 10 Grand Raise!
But I guess a few small-minded totalitarians still think all OUR money belongs to the gov’t….right little johnson?
Ray Olson
April 1, 2024 at 4:37 pm
I honestly thought you were one of the adults in the room. Obviously, I was mistaken (I arrived at this conclusion not only by watching you stamp your little feet in anger, I also reviewed all your votes in this session) Basically you’re just Biteman in a better suit.