6 I The Lovell Chronicle I March 8, 2012
Budget finishes, Senate nearly ready to adjourn
BY DAVID PECK
The budget has been passed, bills are
on final readings and the 2012 Budget Ses-
sion of the 61 st Wyoming Legislature is just
about to wrap up, Sen. Ray Peterson report-
ed Tuesday night.
Wednesday was to be the final day for
bills to be considered on third reading, with
only concurrence work on differing versions
of particular bills to follow on Thursday. He
said the session could wrap up as early as
today (Thursday) and no later than noon on
Friday.
The Senate and House conference com-
mittee on the budget, of which Peterson
was a member, met and came to an agree-
ment on the $3.2 billion Friday, reconciling
differences in the two versions of the bud-
get bill, with the Senate agreeing to appro-
priate $7.5 million to community colleges
to provide for "enrollment growth" - in oth-
er words, more positions.but no salary in-
creases for current staff members.
Peterson said the 2012-14 biennial bud-
get basically flatlines the current 2010-12
budget over the next two years for every-
thing except necessary upgrades in com-
puter software and the like while putting a
hold on raises and hiring.
The conference committee members
signed the bill - actually companion House
and Senate bills - on Monday, the House
and Senate voted to concur and the bill was
signed by the Senate president and the
speaker of the House, He said Gov. Matt
Mead was expected to sign the bill, but he
also noted that while the budget contains
no major cuts, state agencies may face a 4
percent cut over the second half of the bien-
nium when the legislature convenes for its
2013 general session - if the price of natu-
ral gas continues to fall.
Part of the budget process was a bill -
SF 105 - to fund school capital construc-
tion over the biennium, and Peterson said
that bill passed the House on third read-
ing Thursday and was signed by Gov. Matt
Mead Tuesday. The bill contains $5.5 mil-
lion for the remodeling of Lovell High
School - phases II and III. Phase II is for
fine arts and vocational education including
a multipurpose room and a kitchen. Phase
III is for upgrading the rest of the classroom
space in the high school.
Lovell Supt. of Schools Dan Coe said
architectural work could begin in about
two months, and with the
School Facilities Commis-
sion having to approve each
step of the design process, it
could take a year before the
project is ready to go out for
bids. He said he is hoping to
see actual construction be-
gin in June of 2013.
ENDOWMENT
Peterson said he was
pleased that House Bill 113,
which he co-sponsored along
with Rep. Dave Bonner of
Powell, was expected to
pass the Senate on Wednes-
day after barely surviving
on Monday.
The bill would give criti-
cal access hospitals - like
North Big Horn Hospital and South Big
Horn Hospital - two more years to raise
funds to match up to $250,000 in state mon-
ey through the Critical Access Hospital En-
dowment Challenge Program.
So far, only two critical access hospi-
tals - hospitals with 25 or fewer beds that
serve rural communities - have matched
the $250,000 maximum, and both of those -
in Hot Springs and Johnson counties - are
county hospitals where the county commis-
sion allocated the match.
District-based hospitals have had to
raise the money gradually, and so far North
Big Horn Hospital has raised $10,000,
which Peterson said is at the bottom of the
list of those participating but ahead of the
eight hospitals that have so far chosen not
to participate, including South Big Horn
Hospital.
The program was to end on June 30,
2012, but the bill extends the endowment
challenge through June 30, 2014, giv-
ing small hospitals more time to meet the
match. The bill does cut some funding for
the endowment challenge, with $1.5 million
in funding moving forward but the balance
of the fund, around $1.3 million, going back
into the budget reserve account on June 30,
2012.
The bill almost didn't survive on Mon-
day, Peterson said. Monday was the last
day for bills to be considered in the Commit-
tee of the Whole (first reading), and late in
the day the bill was buried under about four
Senator
Ray Peterson
other bills. He then heard a
pair of senators, including
powerful Appropriations
Committee chairman Phil
Nicholas of Laramie, talk-
ing about the endowment.
challenge bill and asking
if it had ever been revert-
ed back to the appropria-
tions committee since, even
though it contained no new
money, it did affect the bud-
get.
He said the bill passed
the House without going
through reversion and was
considered in the Senate La-
bor, Health and Social Ser-
vices Committee, chaired
by Sen. Charles Scott of
Casper. It passed out of the
Scott committee on Friday but, again, was
not re-referred to Appropriations.
"Here we are, at 5 o'clock on the last
day, and this problem comes up," Peterson
said.
Scott and Nicholas convened a meeting
of the rules committee, and Peterson said
he and Sen. Bill Landen of Casper consult-
ed with the Legislative Services Office and
were ready to appeal a negative decision
to the entire Senate. But luckily the rules
committee ruled in favor of the Labor Com-
mittee and Peterson was able to present the
bill, which passed on first reading Monday
and second reading Tuesday.
OTHER LEGISLATION
Peterson noted some other bills that
passed this week:
• He voted for Senate File 33, which
creates the Dept. of Enterprise Technolo-
gy Services, passed the House and received
concurrence by the Senate on Friday.
Though some citizens fear the bill would
grow state government, Peterson said the
bill is designed to save taxpayer money by
creating a single IT agency that can han-
dle purchases and technical support for all
state agencies and, thus, have greater pur-
chasing power and eliminate duplication of
technology services.
"It will combine a lot of things to get
better prices and more efficiency," Peter-
son said, "from laptops and copiers to main
frames and software. It will create an IT
agency to do all purchases and provide
support, except for specialty software. It
doesn't grow government because it takes a
percentage of operations money from agen-
cies and applies it to the new agency."
• Peterson's bill creating the Wyoming
Medicaid False Claims Act, SF 81, passed
the Senate last Wednesday, Feb. 28, 30-0,
and was passed out of the House Judiciary
Committee on Friday, 8-1, but it never came
up for consideration on the House floor.
• The Education Accountability bill,
SF 57, which modifies the state assessment
system, passed third reading in the House
on Tuesday. According to Lovell Supt. Coe,
the lengthy bill establishes phase I of a
state accountability effort, setting up a sys-
tem to be devised later for school account-
ability by scoring schools based on student
assessments like PAWS and tying student
assessments and performance to staff eval-
uations.
Peterson voted for the bill in the Sen-
ate.
"We're still trying to work through the
process of looking at different ways of tying
some things down," Peterson said. "There
have been question marks in the legisla-
ture's eyes (in regard to education), and we
want to find out where the problems are
and get good, quality information."
• House Bill 108 regarding Profes-
sional Teaching Standards Board teacher
certification passed the Senate on second
reading Tuesday. Coe said the bill requires
background checks already being imple-
mented by the PTSB when a person applies
for a teaching certificate to be considered
in the certification process, and if an appli-
cant has a felony conviction on his or her
record, he or she would not receive certifi-
cation.
"Currently, they're not weighing the
background check as part of the certifica-
tion," Coe said.
• House Bill 21, which allows a driver
to increase speed by 10 mph over the posted
speed limit while passing a slower vehicle,
passed the Senate 27-2 on Tuesday, and the
House concurred with Senate changes.
Peterson said he voted for a number of
House joint resolutions but said the resolu-
tions are not binding but, rather, are more
like statements designed to promote discus-
sion and gain media attention on various
topics.
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