Legislative Session May Extend
Written by Andrew-Rossi on March 7, 2018
A state senator from Cowley says that Wyoming’s legislative session may not end as scheduled.
Senator Ray Peterson, who represents Big Horn and Park Counties in Cheyenne, said yesterday that if the House and Senate don’t come to an agreement on the budget in the next couple of days, the session may extend into next week.
Peterson says that the sticking point is the amount of money it takes to fund the state’s K-12 education system. The Senate and the House are millions of dollars apart in their proposals to reduce the state’s spending in order to counter the massive education budget deficit, and no revenue generating bills were introduced in this session.
Peterson says that the state has already spent over $800 million dollars out of reserves in order to keep the school system funded, but if the economy doesn’t come back in the way that everyone hopes, he says that other divisions in state government might be affected.
Peterson says that the state is looking at an $800 million dollar shortfall in the education budget over the next two years. He says that if the economic downturn continues, and no basic reductions are made in the near future, harder and harsher decisions will need to be made later in the form of tax increases and drastic cuts.
