The primary budgeting arm of the Legislature voted Tuesday to defund the Wyoming Business Council, the state’s top economic development shop since 1998.
Following a motion by Powell Republican Sen. Dan Laursen, the Joint Appropriations Committee agreed to zero out the council’s budget, leaving $2 million to administer existing loans. Though the recommendation must go to the full Legislature during the budget session that begins in February, the committee’s direction carries significant weight.
Committee members also indicated there’s another bill in the works to more fully close out the Business Council, “statutorily.” A majority of members indicated they were willing to sponsor such a bill as a committee.
Closed for business?
Before the vote, committee member Rep. Trey Sherwood, a Laramie Democrat, offered a “friendly amendment” to Laursen’s motion.
“My thought would be to leave, I don’t know, approximately $200,000 to provide to the Department of Transportation to create signs that could hang on the ‘Welcome to Wyoming’ signs that say ‘We’re closed for business.’”
The motion died.
Devils Tower Republican Sen. Ogden Driskill said he had doubts about the Business Council’s effectiveness as well. But he warned that defunding the organization without contemplating Wyoming’s future role in economic development will have broad, lasting negative impacts for the state’s economy.
“We probably ought to just go ahead and open up the anti-business council, because that’s really what we’re doing,” Driskill said. “That sounds a little harsh, a little bitter today. Guess what? The decisions you folks are making, should they become law, dramatically affects my grandkids and great-grandkids.”
Gillette Republican and Appropriations Co-chair Rep. John Bear said the state will be better off without the council.
Colleagues “to my left just said, ‘You know what? What are you for?’” Bear said. “I am for free markets, for capitalism, and my [colleagues who] said we need to problem solve, I agree. We need to problem solve.
“But I’m here to tell you,” Bear continued, “I don’t believe that government is the solution to most of our problems. So with that, I don’t think this agency has been effective, and I don’t think they’re going to be effective. We’re going to reset. I think we need to determine something that will work.”
Business Council’s role
Sensing an appetite among Joint Appropriations Committee members to take such an action, Gov. Mark Gordon last week sent a letter to the legislative body imploring members to examine, but not defund, the council.
“I understand, it may be time for the Business Council to benefit from more careful scrutiny from the Legislature in how it goes about the tasks assigned to it,” Gordon wrote in a Jan. 7 letter to the committee. “A course correction may be warranted, but a wholesale defunding of the [Business Council] would be counterproductive.”
Reached for comment Tuesday, Gordon said those opposed to state economic development efforts have “zero knowledge of our budget and zero regard for the future of Wyoming.
“If this shallow and shortsighted move today by JAC stands,” Gordon continued, “it leaves Wyoming with a ‘closed for business’ sign out. Thankfully this action is preliminary and can be reversed during the full legislative session.”
WyoFile reached out to the Wyoming Business Council on Tuesday, but the organization declined to comment.
The Business Council had requested a budget of $112 million for the next biennium, or two-year budget cycle. Gordon, in his recommendation to lawmakers, trimmed the request to $54.6 million, mostly by removing $50 million for an ongoing broadband buildout effort.
The committee last week called on Business Council Chief Executive Officer Josh Dorrell to answer questions about ongoing concerns that the organization wasn’t aligned with Wyoming businesses and communities.
Dorrell noted that the council has been asking lawmakers to engage in a longer discussion about how to realign the organization with a changing economic and political environment.
“We are very willing to not defend our programs, or to defend the efforts that we’ve taken so far, but rather to seek out the problem and address it with the right statutes and the right investment mechanisms. That’s what you have in front of you,” Dorrell said.
Aside from existing and potential Wyoming businesses, municipalities throughout the state often rely on the council for direction on how to expand their economies, as well as loans to update aging, critical infrastructure such as water and sewer.
