Wyoming Bills Dealing With Property Taxes, Child Abductions

While the 2024 session of the Wyoming Legislature is still over a month away, bills dealing with limitations on property tax increases, preventing child abductions, and allowing motorists to carry electronic vehicle registrations are among the proposals that have already been filed for consideration.

The 2024 session is slated as a 20-day budget session. It's scheduled to convene on February 12 in Cheyenne.

While non-budget items can be introduced during a budget session, it takes a 2/3 majority vote of lawmakers to do so. Even so, there has been a trend in recent years of legislators trying to introduce more non-budget bills during budget sessions.

Wyoming alternates 40-day general sessions with 20-day budget sessions. While legislative committees hold hearings throughout the year on various topics, the full legislature does not convene in Cheyenne other than the regularly scheduled general and budget sessions unless a special session is called to deal with emergency issues.

The 2024 session is slotted to run through Friday, March 8. While the session is still over a month away at this point, as of Monday morning 47 bills had already been filed for consideration in the 62-member Wyoming House of Representatives, while another 39 had been filed in the 31-member Senate. Two joint resolutions have also been filed for the upcoming session.

But since lawmakers have until non on February 14 to fill bills with the Legislative Service office, the final number of proposed bills is certain to be much higher.

For example, in 2022, the last time lawmakers met in a budget session, the House considered 155 bills, and the Wyoming Senate 114 proposals. An additional 8 proposed Joint Resolutions were filed in the House and two more in the Senate.

Bills That Have Already Been Filed For The Session

Among the bills that have already been filed for the upcoming session:

House Bill 3. This bill would reduce property taxes for the primary residences of those aged 65 and above by 50 percent if they have paid Wyoming property taxes for at least 30 years. That measure is sponsored by the Legislature's Joint Interim Revenue Committee. It's worth noting that committee-sponsored bills in the legislature tend to have a higher success rate than those put forward by individual lawmakers.

House Bill 6. Sponsored by the Joint Transportation, Highways, and Military Affairs Committee. Would increase the fine for violating road closures for light, high-profile vehicles from the current $750 to $2,500.

House Bill 18. Sponsored by the Joint Revenue Interim Committee. Would limit increases in residential property taxes to no more than 9.5 percent per year.

House Bill 23. This would allow Wyoming motorists to have the option of having electronic car registrations as an option to the traditional hard-copy registration. Sponsored by Rep. JT Larson [R-Sweetwater County] and several co-sponsors.

House Bill 29. Would require the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation to maintain a database of homicide and felony sexual cases that are at least three years old. Sponsored by the Joint Judiciary Interim Committee.

Senate File 36. Would authorize Wyoming District Courts to take preventative steps to keep children from being abducted in cases where there is evidence that there is a credible threat of abduction. Sponsored by the Joint Judiciary Interim Committee.