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January 22, 2007Day 10 – Monday INDEX OF BILLS COVERED IN TODAY’S REPORT HB 34: Jury Duty Pay TODAY’S ACTION ON BILLS HB 34: Jury Duty Pay HB 34 would increase the amount jurors would be paid from the current $30 per day to $40 per day. It was estimated this would cost an additional $20,000 to $30,000 per year in state court costs. Local court costs were not estimated. The House passed HB 34 on second reading, and the bill will move on to third reading (final vote) on Tuesday. HB 58: State Employee Longevity Pay HB 58 would permanently increase longevity pay for state employees from $30 per month to $40 per month for every five years of service. In the 2006 Budget Session, the Legislature passed an amendment to the budget bill that temporarily increased longevity pay to $40 per month, but that will revert to the $30 level at the end of the current two-year budget cycle (July 2008). The House passed HB 58 on second reading, and the bill will move on to third reading on Tuesday. HB 59: Moist Snuff Tobacco Tax HB 59 would add a specific tax on moist snuff tobacco, which is currently taxed in a group with all tobacco products other than cigarettes at a rate of 20% of wholesale purchase price. Under HB 59, moist snuff (also known as chew) would be taxed at a rate of fifty cents ($0.50) per ounce. The House first amended HB 59 to raise the tax from fifty cents to eighty-five cents, and then defeated the measure on third reading (final vote) on Monday, 26-31 (3 excused). HB 62: Natural Resource Large Project Funding HB 62 would authorize funding for two large projects under the Wildlife and Natural Resource Funding Act that have been approved by the board of the trust fund. The Bates Creek Watershed Restoration project would receive $200,000 and the Lander Front mule deer project would receive $230,000. The LSO bill digest for HB 62 places the bill on general file in the House, but it has not appeared on the House floor calendar. Check tomorrow’s report for an update. HB 70: Game and Fish – License
Fees HB 70 would increase hunting and fishing license fees by 20%, effective in 2008. It would also increase application, conservation stamp and permit fees, selling agent fees and landowner coupon payments by 20%, and would generate about $5.6 million in additional revenue for the Game and Fish Department annually. The House passed HB 70 on Monday, 44-13 (3 excused). The bill will now move to the Senate. HB 71: Game and Fish – License
Fees 2 HB 71 would automatically adjust all fees charged by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department and landowner coupon payments to account for inflation, using the implicit price deflator as published by the United States Department of Commerce as the index to determine the annual rate of increase or decrease. The House passed HB 71 on Monday, 33-24 (3 excused). The bill will now move to the Senate. HB 80: Minimum Wage for Tipped Employees Current Wyoming law requires that all employers pay their employees a minimum wage of $5.15 per hour, matching the federal minimum wage. But in an interesting exception to minimum wage requirements, employers are required to pay only $2.13 per hour to tipped employees. HB 80 marks the third attempt in three years to eliminate the exception to minimum wage standards for tipped employees. The bill would require that all employers pay at least $5.15 per hour (matching the federal minimum wage) to tipped employees. The House Travel, Recreation, Wildlife and Cultural Resources Committee passed HB 80 on Monday, on a 5-3 vote. Representatives Pat Childers (R-H50, Cody), Allen Jaggi (R-H18, Lyman) and Jim Slater (R-H46, Laramie) voted against the bill. Representatives Kermit Brown (R-H14, Laramie), Bernadine Craft (D-H17, Rock Springs), Kathy Davison (R-H20, Kemmerer), Jerry Iekel (R-H29, Sheridan) and Bill Thompson (D-H60, Green River) voted for the bill. Representative Patrick Goggles (D-H33, Ethete) was excused from the meeting. HB 93: Sales Tax
on Food – Permanent
Exemption 2 HB 93 would permanently exempt groceries from sales taxation, and as introduced would have altered the sales tax distribution formula to partially reimburse local governments for the estimated revenue decrease they would otherwise experience as a result of the exemption. The House Committee of the Whole took the unusual step of refusing to consider the bill as reported out of committee, instead sending it back to the Revenue Committee with instructions to simplify and clarify it. The Revenue Committee passed a substitute version of HB 93 on Friday, which would permanently repeal the sales tax on food and which contained no provisions for making up lost revenue to local governments. The substitute bill was re-referred to the House Appropriations Committee, which will hear the bill on Tuesday at noon if there is time, or upon adjournment. HB 95: Quality Child Care HB 95 would continue implementation of the quality child care program that was started by the 2006 Legislature, which authorized first year spending on the program to set up the program, develop rules for the quality rating system and devise the scholarship component of the program. HB 95 would authorize the Wyoming Business Council to fund child care facilities through the business ready community program. The bill would create a quality child care system to encourage the availability of high quality care for children in licensed facilities. The system would consist of a quality rating system; scholarships for families for higher levels of quality care; educational grants for child care providers; technical assistance, quality assessment and business management services; and capacity enhancement grants. Appropriations totaling $12.3 million to fund HB 95 were contained in a separate bill, HB 96 (Quality Child Care Appropriations. The House Labor, Health and Social Services Committee began hearing HB 95 on Monday, and will continue to consider the bill on Tuesday morning at 8:00 a.m. HB 115: School Finance – Amendments HB 115 would address a number of matters relating to the financing of public schools in Wyoming. The bill would extend the summer school, extended day school, and instructional facilitator programs, would clarify the enrichment program part of the extended day program, and would direct the Wyoming Department of Education to recommend permanent funding for these programs for consideration by the 2008 Legislature. HB 115 would continue the ongoing review and evaluation of the at-risk program, and would initiate a review of distance education programs. The House Committee of the Whole passed HB 115 on Monday, and the bill will be heard on second reading on Tuesday. HB 120: Sex Offender Registration HB 120 would amend a number of provisions related to required registration of convicted sex offenders. The bill would reduce the time in which an offender must register, eliminate district court hearings to determine the level of risk for re-offense that an offender may pose, eliminate risk levels for re-offense, require all types of sexual offenders to register, make registration information about all offenders public, increase the time of required registration for offenders, and increase the penalties for failure to register. The House Committee of the Whole passed HB 120 on Monday, and the bill will be heard on second reading on Tuesday. HB 169: Clean Coal Technology HB 169 would create a sales tax exemption for equipment used to construct “clean coal” power plants that would have reduced pollution impacts compared to traditional coal-fired power plants. Pollution control equipment that would be tax exempt would include circulating fluidized bed combustion, low nitrogen oxide burners, supercritical boilers, electrostatic precipitators, scrubbers, flue gas desulphurization, selective catalytic reduction and mercury filtration, and carbon dioxide sequestration equipment. Coal gasification facilities that convert coal into energy without combustion would likely also qualify for the tax exemption. The LSO was not unable to determine the likely fiscal impact of HB 169, because of the unknown level of construction activity that might occur in Wyoming, but they speculated that a $600 million construction project might translate to about $10 million in sales tax revenue that the state would lose if this sales tax exemption were in place. The House Minerals, Business and Economic Development Committee passed HB 169 on Monday, 8-1. Representative Floyd Esquibel (D-H44, Cheyenne) cast the single NO vote against the bill. HB 170: Industrial Facilities HB 170 would create another exemption to the state sales tax, this time for pollution control equipment installed on old power plants or other industrial facilities to reduce their environmental impacts and to meet environmental standards. This sales tax exemption would reduce state tax revenue by an estimated $1.7 million every year for the next 8 years, when the provision would expire (unless a future legislature extended it). The ESPC opposes sales tax exemptions that target specific industries, noting that large companies such as utilities have the resources to pay sales taxes on equipment purchases without difficulty, and the potential savings to ratepayers from the tax savings for the utilities would be unobservable. Opponents noted that the decision to install pollution control upgrades is largely driven by government regulation, and the relatively small amount saved by this sales tax exemption would almost certainly not be an incentive that would persuade a utility to install such equipment. The Chair of the House Minerals, Business and Economic Development Committee, Representative Thomas Lockhart (R-H57, Casper), tabled HB 170 on Monday. It is not clear whether this means the bill is dead for this session, or if it might be resurrected later in the session. HB 188: Endangering Children and Unborn - Methamphetamine HB 188 would classify intentional prenatal exposure to methamphetamine as criminal child endangerment that would lead to a felony conviction punishable by imprisonment up to five years, a fine up to $5,000, or both. The House Judiciary Committee laid back HB 188 Monday, because they wanted to consider the bill at the same time they consider another bill on the same subject, HB 68. The hearing where they will consider both bills together has not yet been scheduled. HJ 4: Initiative and Referendum Requirements HJ 4 would place an amendment to the Wyoming Constitution to modify the signature requirement for a petition for an initiative or referendum before the voters in the next general election. Currently, a petition must be signed by at least 15% of the voters in at least two-thirds of the counties of Wyoming. The proposed amendment would change the requirement to at least 15% of the qualified voters in at least two-thirds of the state’s senate districts. The current petition signature requirements are generally thought to be unconstitutional, because the county distribution requirement is in conflict with the constitutional requirement of equal representation. Because senate districts are based on population, signature requirements based on them would offer more equal representation. However, the ESPC argued that the signature requirements would still be too high to provide a reasonable opportunity for volunteer petition efforts to succeed. The House passed HJ 4 on second reading, and the bill will move on to third reading on Tuesday. SF 72: Indian School Education Programs SF 72 would require the State of Wyoming and the joint business councils of the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho Indian Tribes to provide educational programs that address conditions of unemployment, poverty and lack of adequate job skills on the Wind River Indian Reservation. The bill would provide an appropriation of just over $1 million from the general fund to the governor’s office to fund the contracted programs for the coming year. The Senate Committee of the Whole passed SF 72, and the bill will be heard on second reading on Tuesday. SF 73: State-Federal Partnership Schools SF 73 would authorize partnership agreements between Wyoming and the federal government to establish state-federal partnership school districts in Wyoming. Such agreements would allow a partnership school district to be formed on the Wind River Indian Reservation at St. Stevens. St. Stevens would be incorporated into the state school system, and would be included in Wyoming’s system of school finance, state retirement and school building maintenance programs. State financial support for St. Stevens would be reduced by any federal revenue that was available to the school. SF 73 finally appeared on Senate general file on Monday, where it will await floor action. SF 100: Public School Teacher Incentive Programs SF 100 would provide funding for school districts for incentive payments of $2,000 to teachers who are certified and teach in more than one subject area throughout the school year, and for incentive payments of $4,000 to teachers who hold national board certification. It would cost the school foundation fund about $628,000 to fully fund these two incentive programs. The Senate passed SF 100 on second reading, and the bill will move on to third reading on Tuesday. SF 102: Children’s
Advocacy Centers SF 102 would allow children’s advocacy centers (which provide comprehensive services to children who are victims of sexual and physical abuse and neglect) to apply for state and federal funding from the attorney general’s office, through the crime victim’s compensation program. SF 102 would appropriate $1.5 million from the general fund to pay for the program. The Senate Appropriations Committee heard SF 102 on Monday, but committee action was not reported by the end of the evening. Check tomorrow’s report for an update on the fate of this bill. Please Visit The Following Links:
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