The 67th Legislative Session wraps up on Friday

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (Wyoming News Now) - As legislators close out the 67th Legislative session, lawmakers move their bills toward the Governor’s desk on Friday.

Tax relief is on the way, and the property tax residential property class will be how residents can get it.

The bill initially targeted the elderly and poor to provide tax relief, and now it is for everyone who lives in Wyoming.

”This is a big deal with the residential property tax potentially being a separate tier and well see where that ends up. Those could be big things,” said Sen. Cale Case, S.D. 25.

Next, it’s our most valuable resource, and as a headwaters state, Wyoming is investing in water.

Omnibus water bills for Construction, Planning and Administration head to the Governor’s desk.

These bills will add $53M to the water development accounts for projects, funding, and studies for water and drought conditions.

With failing national water infrastructure and privatizations, lawmakers are working to provide sideboards for this resource.

”All of the projects that you rely on to receive your water will continue to be funded and upgraded and rehabilitated as we need from municipal to irrigation water, and we’ll also provide some funding to deal with the colorado river basin and the drought contingency plan,” said Sen. Cheri Steinmetz. S.D. 3.

Finally, lawmakers raise red flags about out-of-state influences on this year’s legislative session.

”Politics is being mass produced... People are keeping track of legislation all across the state, all across the country, and with the internet and everything people are on top of everything,” said Case.

Lawmakers say these influences are very conservative and religious and are crafting bills that don’t fit Wyoming’s needs.

”All these kind of hotbutton you know... Most of them arent even Wyoming issues but I think they make these nice sound bites on Twitter and Facebook but I think a lot of these bills are written by out of staters. They are awkward and they don’t fit or align in our statutes,” said Rep. Steve Harshman, H.D. 37.

And it’s happened more this year than it ever has.

”Too often, we have model pieces of legislation or stuff thats brought in from other states that dont apply to Wyoming or maybe arent crafted for Wyoming. So we need to focus on wyoming solutions for Wyoming problems,” said Gov. Mark Gordon.

Lawmakers said this might be something to watch or create sideboards for in the next session.

As the Governor continues to sign new bills into law, the following interim session will begin next month.

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