It is over.

Wrap of the session goes quick. Most of the lobbyists head out when the issue they were following either finishes or dies, so by the last day or two things are kind of quiet. The folks that are left get nice again once the arguments are all over.

A lot of maneuvering goes on to establish an agenda for interim work for the various committees. In theory, the interim meetings which are conducted jointly with the committees from both houses provide an opportunity to take a more in depth and less pressured opportunity to delve into a complicated issue. Usually, better work occurs in the interim, but not always. Sources of interim inspiration are those bills that almost made it in the session. Any good idea may take a few tries, but eventually it will get passed. Sometimes bad ideas get weeded out in the process, but my read is that this does not happen as much as it should. Living with a bad law is a worse outcome than waiting a year or two for a good law.

Committee’s decided their interim topics and then request that Management Council approve the agenda and budget. Management Council is the committee that is the business manager for the legislature. Over the years Management Council has increased its influence. For the first several years of my legislative experience, standing committee’s had the freedom to decide their agendas – some feel that this was abused and led to excessive bills. The Labor Committee always is pointed to when this is brought up. I tend to feel that the Management Council approval process has not improved anything much.

The last day of the session is always bitter sweet. Most folks put their differences aside, shake hands and get on with it. There are lots of hugs, even a few tears, especially by and for members that will not be returning. I am losing two great friends from the Senate Rae Lynn Job and Jayne Mockler. I have much respect for these ladies. They are thoughtful, caring, strong and liberty-minded. I will miss them deeply in the Senate, but I look forward to their new lives. Jayne will most assuredly be the next mayor of Cheyenne and Ray Lynn will be moving to Cheyenne to pursue her work in educational consulting and teaching the teachers.

Then it is home to see what folks think. For me this is not too traumatic as I go home every weekend during the session. It is interesting to see what your constituents think of the legislature’s work and most importantly, how you did.

Saturday, the day after the legislature ended, I walked into the Summit Restaurant in Lander. I just made it through the front when a table of folks grabbed me to ask about the Castle bill in Cheyenne. It will be like that for a couple of weeks. I love it.

The body count is piling up. There are now almost as many dead bills as there are live ones here. That is no doubt a very good thing. One of the bill bodies is mine.

We are almost to that magic day: Monday will be the last day for bills in Committee of the Whole in the second house. Any bill that is not through Committee of the Whole by the end of Monday is dead. Many bills are already dead: Adult adoption, Driving with Headlights, Welfare Drug Screening, Salvage Yards-Restrictions, Governmental Immunity Vanpools, Small Employer Health Insurance (that’s mine), And about 120 others languish in Bill Neverland, where they will never grow up to be laws…at least this year. The old saying here is that good ideas come back and hopefully we won’t see any of the dogs again.

Now the name of the game is conference committees. Any legislation must be passed in an identical form by both houses. When the second house makes a change to a bill that came over from the originating house, the bill goes back to the originating house for approval of the changes. If the originating house does not approve, a conference committee of three members is appointed to meet with a like committee from the second house and come up with a changes acceptable to both houses.

A lot can happen in the conference committee process. The first committee is bound to try to work within the differences between the two houses and try to come up with a proposed report that is taken back to each house to try to get approval. If they can’t reach and agreement or the agreement is turned down by one of the houses, a new committee will be appointed. The new committee members may be the same or different and the committee may be appointed as a “free committee” that can bring back a proposed compromise outside of the strict boundaries of the differences between both houses. Conference committees happen fast. Notice requirements are by necessity less rigorous than for a standing committee meeting. Getting people together for a meeting is difficult during the chaotic last week. A person following a bill has to be on their toes too.

The budget has a special conference committee of five members from each house, rather than the normal three. Usually, the Senate appoints all of the members of the Senate Appropriations Committee to be the Senate Budget Conference Committee. There is a lot of fuss and bluss with the budget conference committee, but the truth is that the budget differences are worked out and the budget is fast approved almost every time. It has been quite a while since a second conference committee has had to be appointed on the budget. I figure that by this time in the session, folks start getting in the mind to go home, and with all the money we have had the last few years, there is little mood for a real fight. On Friday, the budget conference worked out the same way, and the approved Budget Bill will be signed and sent down for the Governor’s signature.

I’m chairing the conference committee on the Senate File 11: Subdivisions – Large Acre Parcels. This is an important bill and it is the one that the some of the realtors and others back home in Fremont County do not like, while others at home like it a lot. Jayne Mockler and Bill Landen are also on the committee from the Senate. This is a good combination. Jayne is a great legislator and Bill is proving himself a very capable new Senator. The House has not appointed their committee yet, so stay tuned for the assessment on that side. I doubt if the activities of the conference committee will generate much attention, but that bill is one of the biggies this year.

We are halfway through the session now, so today we are doing a little dance that we call “crossover”. Crossover refers to the switching of bills from one side of the legislature to the other. So far in the Session, the Senate has been working only on Senate Files and the House has been focusing on House Bills.

(Why are bills in the Senate called files? I do not know why, but they always have been. Does anybody have the answer? )

This will be the last day for third reading for bills in the original house. Third reading is the final vote on a bill in a particular house. The Senate has 34 Senate Files for the final vote today. The House has 26 bills on third reading and another 15 on second reading…meaning that the latter House Bills still will need a final vote in the House tomorrow.

After today in the Senate we will only be working on House Bills and after tomorrow, the House will be taking appropriate care of some of our fine Senate Files. There is a lot of joking in each chamber that we do not have to work as hard now because it is only a “House Bill” or vice versa.

The workload after crossover is typically harder on the Senate and easier on the House because of the number of bills from both houses. When you think that the House has 60 members and the Senate 30 members, you begin to get the picture. Add to this the fact that Senators have a three bill limit during a budget session. The 3 bill restriction does not apply to Representatives.

There are lots of jokes about which house works harder during the session. The Senators are by and large a bit older than the Representatives and on occasion we have been accused of not being overly industrious. Now on this, I cry fowl. Senators do work very hard, especially if we are able to get in our naps after lunch. I will confess that there really has been a few times when a Senator has fallen asleep on the floor.

The workload issue sometimes flairs as a real issue. As the session progresses stress builds and tempers may flair. A particular hard day is the day known as “the last day for a bill to be heard in the second house.” If a bill does not get heard by the second house by the close of this day, it is dead. And the person in each house who controls the agenda of bills being heard is the Majority Floor Leader. It is a dramatic moment when the Majority Floor Leader cuts off debate on this last day for a bill to be heard in the Session. A long list of bills may be left stranded when the Majority Floor Leader stands to address the Chairman and say “Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee of the Whole Rise and Report.” These words kill every bill left on the list to be considered.

One year the Senate Majority Floor Leader did not like the House Bills stuck on the bottom of the list to be considered on the last day so he made the motion to rise and report a little early, killing quite a few House Bills. Several of us used the early adjournments to cruise over and see what the House was doing to our files. This was a bad idea.

As more and more Senators showed up at the House, it was obvious that the Senate had adjourned. The House Majority Floor Leader and the Representatives got a little upset. An announcement was made that “Here the good Representatives are hard at work on Senate Files and the Senators have stopped working early, killing all of our House Bills left.” The House soon adjourned as well, giving the same treatment to a bunch of Senate Files.

There was a reception that night, and the members of both houses were tired, grumpy and ready to go home.

“Wyoming’s economic development efforts need to be focused on creating good jobs so that our youth will not have to leave the state.” Almost every Wyoming citizen and public servant has made this cry. Every citizen, politician and policy maker knows of our common desire to build a Wyoming where our children can earn a decent living to raise a family.

I am convinced that Wyoming’s government policies encourage temporary jobs filled by out-of-state folks who take our tax money and leave the state when the job is done. Not only does this policy export our tax wealth, but it has thoughtlessly eroded our citizen’s purchasing power to invest, build and prosper.

We need to moderate the state’s enormous capital construction program. That way we can make sure more Wyoming people will benefit from well-paying construction jobs for many years to come

Wyoming’s explicit economic development efforts are carried out by the Wyoming Business Council. The WBC has a 2-year Governors budget of $123 million; $95 million is for building community infrastructure and other capital facilities while $28 million is for tourism promotion and traditional economic development efforts. $28 million sounds like a lot, but it is peanuts compared to what the WBC and other state agencies have in their budget for capital construction.

Our two-year budget contains an astonishing $ 357million for building K-12 school buildings and another $125 million in construction spending budgeted for the rest of state government and the University. When you add in the $95 million in community capital construction in the WBC budget, things start to get pricey. Roll in $200 million for highways and the cash register bell rings a lucky $777 million in new capital construction money appropriated this year. But consider that this is not the whole story as it does not include the money we have previously appropriated but have not been able to spend yet because of our jammed up construction program.

Lets try to get the total picture of pent up capital construction. Last biennium’s budget has $279 million in construction projects for state facilities and another $454 million for school construction. These projects are in various stages of completion. Many have not even been started yet, others are still in design and planning and a few are completed. I did a quick look and found that 71% of the state funds for state facilities remain unencumbered. This could mean that over $500 million of the $733 million in previous appropriations has not been spent.

Adding the new and the pending projects means that the bottom line here is that we are looking at trying to spend $1.3 BILLION in capital construction.

All this unfinished and pending construction dwarfs the amount the Wyoming Business Council spends on other economic development programs and tourism promotion. So when it comes to economic development in Wyoming, virtually all of our eggs are really in the capital construction basket.

By properly choosing how, where and when we build, these construction expenditures could be used to employ the maximum number of Wyoming citizens for the longest period of time. Why then, are we spending our taxpayer’s capital construction money in a way that encourages a substantial portion of economic benefits to leave the state? In the case of the new prison, located very close to the Nebraska border, a majority of the construction economic benefits will flow to out of staters who come to Wyoming to build it and later provide a lot of the staffing for the facility. And why are we spending this money so that the greatest possible negative impacts accrue in terms of shortages and high costs imposed on the rest of the economy of Wyoming?

Of course the source of this construction boom is our fabulous new mineral wealth. This wealth has allowed us to catch up on past deferred maintenance and begin to build a wonderful new public infrastructure. K-12 school construction will be a biggie; current plans call for spending up billions (yes the word is BILLIONS) of dollars in the next few years. New school construction is required by the state’s Supreme Court, but even the court can not expect this process to happen all at once. There are emergencies that need to be addressed, but largely we are planning to replace older, but still very functional schools, with newer ones.

In fact, many local school boards and communities are dismayed with the process, wanting more time for planning and more consideration of local wishes in the capital construction decision process. The Wyoming School Facilities Commission has received a host of complaints from school boards, architects, engineers and builders – all bemoaning the pace and ridged requirements of school construction.

In other parts of state government our building boom will mean new Game and Fish facilities, a new National Guard headquarters, an I-90 welcome center, and new buildings at the University and community colleges. Some of these facilities are essential, others desirable, some are convenient and others are just pork.

Our Government-created construction boom combined with the mineral boom makes for a double whammy, contributing to labor and material shortages and high construction costs throughout the state. A note about the prison serves to illustrate a couple of drawbacks to this spending effort. Cost increases forced the legislature to add another $6.9 million in the last session to the $76 million appropriated the session before. This sounds like a lot of money, but unfortunately it is far short of the $125.6 million construction bid that we received which was 52% above the estimated cost. Telling was the fact that the only bid was from and out-of-state company.

Obviously our policies towards mineral development play a role. We are attempting to develop resources at a maximum rate in order to encourage development here and not elsewhere. But this makes for a shorter more intense construction/development period with a maximum of temporary workers. Like our experience with capital construction, labor and materials are in short supply contributing to higher development costs. For gas and oil, earlier resource development means earlier depletion. Compounding the problem for these producers is the fact that when everyone brings new resources on line at one time, take-a-way capacity becomes limited and producers must bid for pipeline capacity by accepting lower prices for their product. This causes a price differential between what resources sold in Wyoming get versus those sold elsewhere.

The booming government capital construction and mineral activities have spill-over affects in private markets. Labor and material shortages make it harder and more expensive for any economic activity. High wages can be a good thing, contributing to a more livable life for our hardworking folks. However, artificially high wages and other costs caused by temporary government expenditures, just make for a flash with no sustenance.

Our goal is to build as fast as we can. To accomplish this we are using a very high percentage of temporary workers and out-of-state contractors who will move on when the job is done. In fact few Wyoming architectural, engineering and construction firms even have the capability to bond for multiple state projects. As proposal after proposal comes across their desks, these Wyoming professionals can only wring their hands and wish that they had the time, staff, and bonding capability to do the work.

There are some things that we could do to modulate the mineral boom. We could slow down the pace of permitting, require greater spacing of wells, extra room for wildlife habitat, and more strictly enforce environmental and archeological regulations. Controversial? You bet. And most of us would not agree on whether this is the right approach or, because of the world energy situation, whether it would even work.

But the government-driven capital construction boom is fully under our control. Wouldn’t it be better to have an initially smaller, but longer term boom that provides a-long term support to Wyoming construction folks? This would allow us to home grow building trades with Wyoming people – people who want to live here for the rest of their lives and build communities as well as buildings. Now wouldn’t it be great if the folks that build all of these new schools stuck around and actually had kids who will go to school there?

There is another bill at the session that affects folks with developmental disabilities. This is Senate File 47 – Wyoming State Training School Amendments.

Lander is the home to the Training School. I sort of grew up there as my father was the school pharmacist for many years after he retired from private business. My mother and I were volunteers at WSTS and my sister, Cindy works there today.

Some might be quick to pronounce WSTS an antiquated institution, but the thoughtful investigator will find a community campus that has all of the advantages of small group homes and a wealth of services and a campus-wide support structure that far exceeds the capability of any other provider/location in Wyoming. There is a lot of water under the bridge with respect to WSTS, including in no small way its 96 year history (mostly as a traditional institution), the Olmstead U.S. Supreme Court ruling, the Weston Lawsuit and Consent Decree in Wyoming, and a dramatic evolution in the care and support of persons with developmental disabilities.

These aspects color our perceptions of the community campus to this day, but the fact remains that, through the hard and caring work of a lot of folks and the support state government, we have now achieved a state community facility that ranks among the best in existence. The number of folks and their families and guardians who choose WSTS as a support option is increasing dramatically. New programs have expanded services to folks with acquired brain injury and a state-of-the art therapeutic equipment program has been established to provide the best care in the multi-state region.

Small miracles happen at WSTS every day and big ones seem to happen on a regular schedule. Through intensive therapy, I have seen brain injured patients regain their abilities, included one who spoke for the first time in years. As a consequence of the finest medical and therapeutic care, I have watched folks have years of happy life despite overwhelming physical challenges.

A bill has been developed by a Select Committee on Developmental Programs. This committee has been in existence a couple of years, primarily focusing on community programs and services within the Department of Health’s Division of Developmental Disabilities. The Committee is a good hearted bunch, but their collective interest and experience has been more focused on the community side. They have had a tendency at times to exhibit a bit of bias, originally they tended to view WSTS budget as a potential source of funds for community program services. Their proposed bill is on the wrong track, attempting to limit services rather than permit cost-effective utilization of WSTS to be made. I am glad to see that a few positive changes have been made to the bill; the biggest good change is to allow for the expression of choice by folks and their families as to whether they want services from the Training School or community programs.

The Committee’s proposed bill also changes the name of WSTS to the Wyoming Disability Resource Center, again reflecting a desire to limit the uses of the campus. I confess to some real personal tension here. I brought a bill last year that proposed the name Wyoming Therapeutic Resource Center. My bill easily passed the Senate, but in the House, the folks on the Select Committee and the Labor Committee refused to give it a hearing. The Therapeutic Resource Center name is better, more reflective of the services offered and respectful of the wishes of clients, families and employees. It is a People First issue as well, as the Committee’s proposed name yields implicit labeling of anyone living or receiving services at the proposed “Disability Center”.

The worst thing about the proposed bill is that it represents a big reorganization of the Department of Health and limits the State’s ability to use the extensive resources of WSTS to help more people. I can not recall another time where the legislature has explicitly and with such great detail told the Governor how to organize a department. I have much more than a feeling that the Department of Health folks do not like it, but during a budget session when everything is on the line, agency people often hide their heads thinking that they must be extra careful and keep quiet. Maybe the executive branch will speak up before this is over. I remain hopeful, even confident that WSTS will be accepted as part of our safety net for a broad range of therapeutic services, including many that are not effectively available in Wyoming now.

Today the Senate Transportation Committee heard and approved my bill to clean up our laws and remove labeling language and the term mental retardation. My co-sponsors, Senator Massie and Representatives Berger and Floyd Esquibel, and I have been working with some of my favorite people who belong to a group called People First and who happen to have developmental disabilities. People First is dedicated to the adoption of language to recognize that we are all people first even though we may have a disability. In addition we are working to remove language that over time has become increasingly offensive. For example, instead of saying “John is mentally retarded” we talk about John as a person with an intellectual disability. I found that there are 28 references to mentally retarded or retarded in the law, and there are other non People First references to the mentally ill, emotionally disturbed, and neurologically handicapped.

Today I had lunch with several of the People First folks. Many asked me if I would help to get rid of the “MR” word. I could tell from their voices that this is an issue of genuine concern and heartfelt intensity. Growing up in Lander in a different age, I can recall playground taunts along the same line. I confess to feeling a twinge whenever I hear the words. I am glad to help to get rid of the term from our law. Language does matter and the Senate Transportation Committee agreed, sending the bill to the floor with a 5-0 do-pass recommendation.

After a long day, I spent an enjoyable evening with some very bright young folks from St. Stephens Bureau of Indian Affairs School. St. Stephens is located in my district on the Wind River Indian Reservation. A long time ago, St. Stephens was a Catholic school. Now it is a public school charted by the federal government. St. Stephens has a duly elected school board. Because the federal government does not provide enough money, the State of Wyoming supplements the federal dollars. We do this for three reasons: 1) St. Stephens is a Public School; 2) the students of St. Stephens are citizens of Wyoming and deserving of the same education benefits as any other Wyoming student; and 3) If we did not supplement the St. Stephens budget to keep the school open, we would have to pick up the entire bill as the students went to other schools.

For some kids, the reservation can be a tough place to grow up. Tribal leaders and elders on the reservation have pulled together to give kids the best possible chance in life. Nowhere can you see this better than at St. Stephens where these leaders join with parents, staff, and the students are working to make a real positive difference in the lives of these fine young folks.

How to work the budget and electronic voting.

Tomorrow we are going to start the budget. The budget bill is handled different than any other bill. If you want to influence Wyoming’s spending, you need to get busy this week. Experience tells me that folks looking for less government will have a rough week.

The Wyoming Legislature went to a “mirror” budget process quite a few years back. Mirror means that the budget goes through the House and the Senate at the same time. In the Senate the bill is called Senate File 1 and in the House it is House Bill 1 – different bills, but they start out with identical language as they came from the changes the Appropriations Committee made to the Governor’s Budget.

It has been argued that the mirror budget makes things easier. Maybe it does, it certainly makes things more expensive – a lot more spending occurs because the process pushes the money pedal as hard as it can.

Here is the schedule for the week. On Monday (the 18^th) we will start the first reading of the budget. It starts in the House and the Senate on the same day and the goal is to finish up with all three readings on the same day, which probably will be Friday. We still work other bills too, so if you are following them, don’t assume that they will not be considered because we are only focusing on the budget.

The Senate restricts amendments to the second and third readings only. If an identical amendment is adopted in both houses, then barring an extraordinary need to balance the budget on the part of the conference committee, it is adopted. The Capitol is a busy place as lobbyists and legislators scurry between the two chambers to try to get the same amendment on in both.

The Senate has always required a recorded vote of each member – what we call the “ayes and nays”-- for budget amendments that affect expenditures. The House did not used to require vote recording on the budget. Millions of dollars have been authorized in unrecorded voice votes that gave the Representatives the ability to say that they were fiscal conservatives when in reality they voted differently. Recently the House has adopted the Senate approach. This is a good thing and my kudos to them. You can now follow how your legislator treats your budget wishes…have fun.

Here is where you can see the budget which is the same in both houses:

http://legisweb.state.wy.us/2008/Introduced/HB0001.pdf

And you can follow the House amendments and how your favorite Representative is voting at:

http://legisweb.state.wy.us/2008/Digest/HB0001.htm

The Senate amendments and the votes of yours truly and my Senatorial friends can be seen at:

http://legisweb.state.wy.us/2008/Digest/SF0001.htm

The digest sites are updated at the end of the day. You can also follow the process via live audio at: http://legisweb.state.wy.us/2008/audio/AudioMenu1.htm

The large number of budget votes and the fact that they will necessitate roll calls by the Chief Clerk in each house will make many think about the fact that Wyoming is one of the few states that does not have an electronic voting system. We have looked into it a couple of times, but never implemented it, mainly due to concerns about how it could be manipulated or is out of character with our historic legislative chambers. I am of the opinion that we need such a system and that it can accommodate our voting rules and beautiful historic capitol.

Follow the budget this week and let us know what you think about electronic voting. By next week the budget will be assigned to a super conference committee to work at the differences between the House and the Senate. The conference committee process adds a new dimension and increased importance for the mirror budget as the respective bills do not have to go to the other house for approval. We will have more discussion on the conference committee later.

All the best, Cale