A Wyoming lawmaker has settled on a plan to reduce the size of state government.
Rep. Ken Pendergraft, R-Sheridan, told Cowboy State Daily that the first thing he’d do to cut the state’s budget is “get rid” of the Wyoming Business Council.
The Wyoming Business Council was founded in 1998. Its stated mission is to “create an economic framework so that Wyoming businesses and communities can thrive.”
Economic development should not be the government’s responsibility, Pendergraft told Cowboy State Daily on Tuesday.
“What it ends up being is the government picking winners and losers,” Pendergraft said. “And certain businesses or individuals get benefits, perks and help, and others are left with what’s not really a free market anymore.”
Wyoming Business Council CEO Josh Dorrell agreed with Pendergraft’s concerns about government intervention in the economy. However, he stated that no markets are truly free anymore.
“There’s definitely a role for government in the economy,” Dorrell told Cowboy State Daily. “We believe that role should be very surgical and the interventions that we take should be well thought out and precise and no more than they need to be.”
In 2024, the Legislature allocated nearly $87 million to the Wyoming Business Council for its biennial budget. The council was also allocated $1.24 million in federal funds and nearly $6 million in “other” funds.
The legislature allocated approximately $23,000 of state funds for information technology hardware, $355,000 for contracting with the Wyoming Women’s Business Center, $900,000 for administrative costs for the state small business credit initiative, and $429,000 for the Wyoming-Asia Pacific Trade Office.
An Uphill Battle
According to Pendergraft, Wyoming spent $370 million between 2015 and 2024 trying to diversify its economy through the Business Council. What did Wyoming get for its money? He inquired.
According to data provided by the governor’s office, real GDP has decreased from $34.8 billion in 2015 to $34.4 billion in 2024.
“In those nine or 10 years, private sector real GDP has decreased while we have spent $370 million to try to increase it,” Mr. Pendergraft continued. “It is not working. “It’s a huge waste of money.”
Dorrell added that Wyoming’s GDP has been declining since 2008. Two out of every three Wyoming natives leave, which is more than twice the national average.
Dorrell also stated that the quality of jobs in the state is declining.
“We are in the business of reversing that economic decline and looking at what systems need to be changed so that those things can be reversed,” according to Dorrell. “That trend does not bode well for the future. Our agency is looking into the major challenges that businesses and communities face when growing.”
Pendergraft stated that the Business Council requested $38 million from the state’s most recent budget, with the goal of funding affordable housing.
Dorrell stated that increasing the supply of affordable housing is part of the strategy for turning the state’s economic fortunes around.
“We look at things like housing, like child care and the economic complexity that our businesses have and that they can achieve in Wyoming,” explained Dorrell. “How do we increase our workforce? And how do we increase the population of our city centers so that they can continue to expand?”
Not new.
Pendergraft’s proposal to reduce the Business Council’s budget is not new, according to Dorrell.
“There’s a push to get rid of the Business Council every legislative session,” he informed me. “It”s something that we obviously take very seriously, but at the same time we use it as a way to get to know people better.”
Typically, the legislator making the call gets to know the council and discovers they share similar views, according to Dorrell.
“In most cases, we end up working together,” he told me.
