Legislature’s budget committee back at work in New Year

By Phil Noble, Cowboy State Free Press Bureau Chief

CHEYENNE—After taking a break for the holidays, the legislature’s Joint Interim Appropriations Committee is back at work on the state’s 2010-11 budget, continuing hearings from state agencies on their budgets.

The tone was set early in today’s hearings by the new director of the Dept. of
Agriculture, Jason Fearneyhough, who took note of the effects of the recession on the state in his opening comments. “We took the (Governor’s) budget cuts seriously in assembling this budget, and have in some areas reduced, as we reassessed the needs of the department through this process,” he said.

The committee showed its desire to go in depth in reviewing agency budgets, spending over an hour and a half on the Agriculture Dept. budget, which had been scheduled for 15 minutes.

Transportation Dept. Director John Cox noted before his hearing that his department had once spent seven hours testifying to the JAC. That’s testament to the complexity of the WYDOT budget, which produced early confusion on the part of JAC members, who got stuck on where funding was coming from for four employees.

JAC Co-chair Sen. Phil Nicholas, R-Albany County, kept insisting the funding for the employees must be coming from the General Fund, since it wasn’t, he said, coming from federal funds. WYDOT Fiscal Officer Kevin Hubbard then explained that his agency uses money from several funds, including highway user fees, from which the funding for the requested positions was to come.

To further confuse the picture, Cox explained the positions had always existed in the agency, but were on the “commission side,” meaning under the purview of the Transportation Commission, and were being moved to the “other side,” or the side under the purview of the legislature.

Until just a few years ago, WYDOT, or the Highway Department as it was known then, had very little oversight by the legislature. As more state money went into highways, though, legislators insisted on having more control over the department.

The employee’s funding was being moved, Cox said, because they were to be used in a different job due to shifting department priorities. The new employees will be placed in the Driver’s License Division of WYDOT, he said.