Property tax ballot initiative signatures campaign

The organization BCR Initiatives is spearheading a ballot initiative and signature campaign for exempting 50% of the assessed value of residential property tax of owner-occupied homes statewide. BCR stands for Brent (Bien), Cheryl (Aguiar), and Rich (Weber) who are leading the effort. They are currently collecting signatures from voters from all over the state and verifying them by comparing them to voter rolls.

Chairman Brent Bien explained the background of how and why their organization and initiative started. He said, "We're basically the voice of the people of Wyoming. We've seen our state government here, they basically caused this problem of runaway residential property tax. You're taxed all the way across the board. We saw this two years ago when we were campaigning in 2022 with residential property tax and how high it is getting. It's just gotten completely out of control here." 

Bien added, "We started over a year ago intensely. We thought, okay, what can we do to effect a change in the state? And, Wyoming being one of 26 states, where the people can actually do a ballot initiative or legislate through a ballot initiative, we jotted down a few ideas based on some of the three predominant concerns that people had in the state."

According to Bien, the State of Wyoming legislature failed to act on 21 bills that deal with property or residential in some form or another. Bien added, "We went through several different iterations of a bill. What we finally decided to do was just write it as an exemption." This process led Bien and his partners to change their tactic.

Bien said, "We actually took a bill, and modified it and we took out the appropriations. We took out certain things and made it very simple and changed the dollar amount to a percentage, which is 50%. We decided, let's cut residential property tax by 50% of the assessed value of the homeowners exemption."

BCR Initiatives worked with the Secretary of State legislative office and the Department of Revenue where they supervised the language of the process. Cheryl Aguiar, BCR's governmental affairs officer, discussed how they spent months going back and forth with the Wyoming Secretary of State with their bill to make sure it is constitutional and legal. Typically, a bill in a state legislature is presented by an elected state representative, however, Wyoming is among 26 states that allow the people to submit a bill to be presented on the ballot and voted upon. By the end of October 2023, they had the ballot initiatives presented, which they then distributed all over the state.

Regarding their grassroots efforts to find support for their ballot initiative, Bien said, "Our forefathers saw that there could be a time when the legislature is grid locked or just comes to an impasse and can't get anything done when it's relative to the people. Our government over the years has kind of evolved into putting government ahead of people, the number one objective of this thing was to protect our liberty. The second objective was to hold all government officials accountable. The last one is really to show folks we can fight back. We as people can fight back and we can make this happen."

Their main objective is to address the rising residential property tax of owner-occupied homes. Rich Weber, BCR's operations manager, said, "People are losing their homes. The ones that aren't losing their homes are having to choose between heating, food and paying their property tax."

Aguiar said a couple from Fremont County told her, "It takes seven Social Security checks to pay their yearly property tax." Aguiar and Weber explained that their bill is for everyone, a simple 50% cut in residential property tax of owner-occupied homes. There are no age restrictions or time required to be living in a home or restrictions based on income stream. Weber described the ripple effect for this particular category that when the property tax goes up, the homeowner's insurance goes up as well. According to Weber, this has caused some homeowners to leave the state.

Regarding opposition to their efforts to put the initiative on the ballot, Weber said, "The first push back was that the poor children won't get an education through all saying residential property tax goes to education, and that's not true. We have a $28 billion reserve in the state, meaning the counties have millions in reserves and they're the sacred cow. We have a $10 billion buy in budget. The fiscal impact statement from the Department of Revenue for this bill, the impact overall in the state, is $137 million a year that will be removed from their budget, which, of course, is less than 1%. It's nothing. And they're all crying that this is going to break the state. That we won't have road graders, we won't have plows, we're going to cancel ambulance service and police and all of this which is not true, because all those are protected by what they call restricted reserves. If $137 million is going to break a state with a $28 billion savings account, there's something wrong either their lying or there's something wrong with their math ability."

According to BCR's documentation they said, "It should also be noted, that, although there would be a reduction in projected tax revenue to local entities, overall property tax revenues would still be going up (just not as much), taxpayers are still paying more." The Department of Revenue reports in 2017 the Actuals for Residential Property Tax was $335.8 million. In 2022, the Actuals were $533.1 million. The 2026 Projection, if the ballot passes, would be $573.3 million. However, if the ballot fails, the 2026 Projection would be $708.3 million. That is an increase of $135 million."

Weber described more about the State of Wyoming's money in reserves. He said, "The most important thing was to keep these people in their homes. We have money in this state and the sacred cows are all these reserves, they're almost like 401k's. If you take money out of them early, you have to pay a penalty and interest. None of the counties and the state do not want to take money out of these accounts because they make a $1 billion a year off of interest. They're saying they can't access it. And we said if we can't access it, why do we have them? When does it rain in Wyoming if this was the rainy day fund? None of it makes sense...When they ran the 21 bills that didn't get passed and they turned around and put $1.4 billion more in the $27 billion rainy day account, but they don't have $137 million for the residential property owners that are losing their homes."

Aguiar added that if their bill passes, that in only Hot Springs County, the reduction of tax collected for residential property tax of owner-occupied homes would be $1.5 million. Additionally, Aguiar emphasizes that their bill focuses and reduces residential property tax of owner-occupied homes by 50%. This is not an all across the board property tax reduction." 

Aguiar also said, "After our intense four-day IPR (Intermediary Project Review) this past weekend, we did not file by the requested date of February 12 (requested by the Secretary of State). We are still collecting signatures as the project has 18 months to complete from October 13, 2023."

When asked that they missed the deadline, does that mean their efforts are not possible? Aguiar said, "No, it does not mean that. It means we still have 18 months from Oct 13, 2023 to complete the project. That deadline was from the Secretary of State (SOS) office to be able to put it on the 2024 ballot. According to the SOS, it will now be on the 2026 ballot after we get the required amount of signatures."

Currently, they have a total of 36,186 signatures in house.

Aguiar added, "We still have many packets 'out there', they are not included in this number. 

Due to the purging of the voter rolls by the Secretary of State's office after every general election of everyone who did not vote in the General Election, the percentage of "invalid" (only registered voters may sign the petition) was very high. If we did not literally open the voter rolls on the spot (ie, check each person on a database on our phones) over 45% of those who believed they were registered to vote were not. This was a huge problem for our project. Passing a Law by the People is very difficult."

Of those in house signatures, they have 26,725 valid signatures. They need: 29,730. Regarding their Distribution Requirement, they need at least 16 counties to reach the 15% requirement.

Since their efforts to have the state legislatures make change, they decided to go to the people with a single subject ballot initiative. They have to get 15% of the number of people who voted in the last election to get on the ballot.

Since they missed their February 12 deadlines, this initiative will now be on the 2026 ballot. During this time, they plan on getting more signatures and support from voters across the state.