Here’s a link to Emily’s excellent Letter to the Editor about residents registering out of state.
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Posted in News
The Joint Appropriations Committee met Friday, September 27th in Douglas and discussed a draft bill titled, “Protecting critical infrastructure from foreign adversaries.” The bill would prevent foreign ownership of property surrounding areas designated as critical infrastructure.
The bill also includes provisions that require language be added to tax assessments and tax notices stating, “that a prohibited foreign party shall apply to the office of homeland security to determine if a conveyance of real property in the State of Wyoming is located on, within or partially within a critical infrastructure zone.”
Representative Sherwood (D-Albany) moved to strike the notification provisions as the notifications were designed for current owners of property and not prospective owners, an amendment that Rep. Walters (R-Natrona) also supported. However, the amendment failed on a 4-4 vote.
The committee voted to sponsor the bill for the upcoming 2025 legislative session, set to begin in January.
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Posted in Legislation, News
Congratulations to the new officers elected at the 2024 WACO meeting in Rock Springs. The new officers are:
President Lindsey West, Carbon County
Vice-President Mark Cowan, Sweetwater County
Treasurer Tracy Fletcher, Albany County
Secretary Leticia Dominguez, Goshen County
We’d also like to send our thanks to the outgoing president, Emily Paravacini, for all of her amazing work during her time as President. We’ve all benefitted from her work.
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Posted in News
How local government entities can invest their funds in the stock market was a main topic of the Capital Finance Committee’s meeting in Casper on September 6th.
The committee considered two bills, Local government funds-direct investment in equities and Local government funds-pooled equity investments.
The bills would provide additional options to local governments who want to invest reserves into the stock market, in addition to Senate File 090, that passed in the 2024 legislative session, and set up a WyoStar 3 equities pool with the State Treasurers Office.
The draft bills are in response to private investment firms, who also wanted an opportunity to invest local government funds, and the Wyoming County Commissioner’s Association, who would like to set up their own investment pool.
The direct investment bill draft required any local government entity that wanted to invest in equities to first set up an investment committee, comprised of members with professional investment experience, that would help guide investment decisions. The Capital Financing Committee amended the bill, first by restricting the bill to apply only to cities, towns and counties, excluding school districts and special districts, then by removing any language in the bill about forming an investment fund committee. The Capital Finance Committee amended the broker criteria, requiring participating brokers to have 10 years experience and controlling more than $110 million in assets. The committee then removed all language regarding fees and eliminated the requirement for investments to be a duration of a minimum of 5 years. Provisions requiring the investments to be in excess of a certain amount of the operating budget and that monies had to be held five years before being invested were also struck. The committee set the cap on funds that can be invested in equities at 30% of a city or county’s total investment portfolio.
The pooled equity bill would set up a Joint Powers Board that would contract with an investment firm and administer the fund, similar to Wyoming CLASS or WGIF. That board would then form an investment committee of experienced individuals to help guide investments and make recommendations to the Joint Powers Board.
The Capital Financing Committee added a provision to allow the Board to compensate members of the investment fund committee the same per diem rate as legislators, to be paid from the fees assessed to participating entities, and made other amendments to conform with the ideas presented for the direct investment bill draft.
Both bills will be reworked by LSO and presented again at the next Capital Financing and Investments meeting on October 30.
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Posted in Uncategorized
WACO is set to begin on Tuesday at the Ramkota in Casper, with the Public Officer Training session to be conducted by the Wyoming Department of Audit.
Here’s the WCTA agenda for the week.
Here’s the complete WACO agenda.
And here’s a map of the Ramkota hotel. Treasurers will meet in the Central Ballroom.
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Posted in Meetings
Welcome to new County Treasurers that were recently sworn into their first terms:
Nicole Vigil, Big Horn County
Tammy Deisch, Laramie County
Katie Araas, Sheridan County
Mark Cowan, Sweetwater County
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Posted in News
Congratulations to Emily, who was voted in as the new President of the association at the WACO meetings in Gillette. Congratulations also to Leticia, who will be the new Vice-President. Thanks to Tracy for maintaining her position as Treasurer and Doris for agreeing to serve as the association’s secretary. We appreciate your service!
The WACO Board has finalized the agenda for the WACO Convention, set for September 27th through 29th at the CamPlex in Gillette. Here’s a link to the agenda. The WCTA events are in blue.
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Posted in Meetings
As the committees continue their interim work, there are several bills of interest to Treasurers. Those to keep an eye on include:
Residential property taxation amendment
Off road recreational vehicles – safety and insurance
Lightweight trailers – permanent registration
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Posted in Legislation
The Management Council has released the interim topics that each standing legislative committee will focus on prior to the 2022 legislative session. Notable topics include:
Revenue Committee
Distribution of Existing Revenue Streams – review all revenues and distribution to local governments
Review of Tax Exemptions
Property Taxes and Taxes on Agricultural Land and Business Personal Property
Transportation Committee
Replacement of the RIS system
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Posted in Uncategorized