Job quality standards needed in Wyo

Let’s make good deals, not just give away millions

Economic Development Association pushes back on criticism of state business subsidy programs

Earlier this month, the Equality State Policy Center joined with Good Jobs First to jointly release a report that points out how Wyoming fails to ask for reasonable returns on its business incentives and subsidies aimed at bringing new business to the state. The report ranks Wyoming 49th among the states on job-creation and job-quality standards.

The state’s efforts to diversify the Wyoming economy are well-intentioned and the goal is laudable. But the Good Jobs First (GJF) report shows clearly that the four state programs analyzed can be improved by incorporating specific job creation and job quality standards. Job quality standards include requiring companies to pay middle class wages and to provide health care and other benefits.

Whenever we raise questions about state programs, we expect to get push-back and we did in this case, too. The Wyoming Economic Development Association complained recently but did not address the specific criticism. It claimed that “… all of these programs have job criteria.”

We disagree.

The Good Jobs First report analyzed four state programs:

1. Data Processing Center – sales/use tax exemption on computing equipment;
2. Film Industry Financial Incentive;
3. Sales and Use Tax Exemption for Purchases of Manufacturing Equipment;
4. Workforce Development Training Fund.

One, the Workforce training program, has a good incentive. It makes more money available to companies that pay the mean county hourly wage. But companies still can qualify for training subsidies even if they’re providing training for low-wage work. The program scored poorly in the GJF report because it is not structured to require training of a certain number of workers.

Still, the ESPC supports worker training so long as the program establishes benchmarks to evaluate its effectiveness and aims it at raising the economic lives of workers by requiring employers who take public funds – subsidies that help their business – to pay living wages and provide good benefits.

The programs that deserve greater scrutiny and that should be modified to include job creation and job quality standards are the tax expenditure programs. Granting certain businesses exemptions to certain taxes gives them a competitive advantage over other enterprises. When the state does this, it should not hesitate to impose job creation and job quality standards. We don’t find any job creation or quality standards in these programs.

Wyoming’s Manufacturing Sales Tax Exemption program is expensive and in at least some cases, has operated directly counter to the goal of the program – creating jobs. In the last three years, nearly $610 million in equipment purchases have been exempted from the tax – both the state sales tax and local option taxes – costing state and local government about $32.3 million.

Most of those purchases were made by the refining industry in Wyoming, which bought equipment to upgrade technology at existing refineries. What did we get for it?

Some will argue that we’ve protected jobs at those refineries. Maybe so, but you have to wonder about the HollyFrontier Refinery in Cheyenne. It has eliminated 40 positions in the last two years, according to news stories based on company-supplied information.

Companies in the manufacturing sector typically offer some of the best pay and benefits found in the economy. Good operators that want to tap public funds to invest in their factories certainly will not balk at job quality and creation standards.

Gov. Mead has asked the Legislature to appropriate another $15 million to attract data processing centers and other high-tech businesses. Now’s the time for legislators to figure out how to help ensure that we reach the goals of bringing more and better jobs to Wyoming. The governor apparently intends to grant these funds to communities to invest in infrastructure preparing local sites for these businesses. Legislators should take the simple step of requiring communities to make job creation and job quality standards part of their incentive packages.

It’s reasonable to demand a fair return on public investment in the private sector.

(Good Jobs First is a national resource center that promotes corporate and government accountability in economic development and smart growth for working families. You can read the GJF press release here.)

Will all state senators have to stand for election following redistricting?

Rep. John Patton of Sheridan talks during the Joint Corporations
Committee meeting in Room 302 of the Capitol Dec. 6.

Redistricting Wyoming’s Legislature this month again revolved around defining communities of interest, ranging from fairly specific definitions to the open ended claim that “there’s a community of interest wherever you go in Wyoming.”

That generous idea was presented by state Sen. Curt Meier who found himself drawn out of his district by the committee’s proposed redistricting plan. He mounted a spirited argument for his ideas to amend the proposed boundaries to save his seat. Meier’s predicament forced a discussion of how the new boundaries affect sitting legislators, an issue the committee previously had avoided publicly.

It also served to focus attention on the effect of redistricting on sitting senators. Will the boundaries change enough to justify requiring senators who won four-year terms in 2010 to campaign again in 2012?

The Joint Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Interim Committee met Dec. 5 and 6 to put together a basic plan. It produced one that gives Campbell County five seats in the House. It also adopted new boundaries for House District 22, completely separating it from Teton and Lincoln counties. And it reversed a decision made in October to split Rawlins.

The process of reconfiguring the boundaries of legislative districts is known as “redistricting.” It is constitutionally mandated. The Legislature must redraw legislative district lines in the first budget session following completion of the decennial U.S. Census. Under the principle of “one person, one vote,” those districts must be nearly equal in population to ensure that each voter wields roughly equal power in legislative elections.

Population grew in some areas of the state and declined in others since the 2000 Census. Now legislative district boundaries must change to reflect those shifts. Campbell County saw the largest growth in population in the state in sheer numbers. Sublette County experienced the greatest percentage increase. Goshen and other northeastern counties and counties in the Big Horn Basin either suffered declines in population  or saw such low growth that they now hold a lower share of the state’s total number of residents.

Once the committee adopted its plan for 60 House districts, it realigned four Senate districts in eastern Wyoming to accommodate the new boundaries of the House districts. (The Wyoming Legislature “nests” two House districts inside each of the 30 Senate districts.)

The committee still must determine whether it will require all 30 senators to run for election when the new districting plan takes effect in 2012. One of the committee’s co-chairmen, Sen. Cale Case, R-Lander, vigorously argued to require only those senators whose terms are up in 2012 to run.

Redistricting aside, all senators serving even-numbered districts must stand for election in 2012. The question is whether the changes that have moved other communities into new Senate districts are significant enough to require all the senators to run. Most of those communities are small. Along with Sen. Meier’s LaGrange, among them are Atlantic City, Dubois, Big Piney and Marbleton, Farson, and Meeteetse.

The committee’s redistricting House and Senate plans are now up on the Legislature’s website. The joint committee will meet again Jan. 19 to consider the written version of the bill that will implement the boundaries agreed to in Cheyenne Dec. 6. Amendments to the plans can be offered at that time.

Final action will take place during the 2012 Legislature.

Wyoming Legislature

Redistricting options proliferate
County clerks offer second statewide plan; other new options surface for Southwest Wyoming and Laramie County

       Wyoming’s legislative redistricting effort will take the stage again Monday with new plans added to the mix.
       Three more plans have been posted on the Legislature's website, including a new plan drawn up by the County Clerks and a new alternative plan for Southwest Wyoming drafted by two senators from the region. Both these new plans would eliminate the gerrymandered district created in 2002 that combined most of Sublette County, northern Lincoln County, and Wilson  and in Teton County. Officials from both Sublette and Teton counties dislike that combination and have pleaded with legislators that it be changed.
        A third new plan for Laramie County also has been posted on the Legislative Service Office's website.
        The Joint Corporations, Elections, and Political Subdivisions Interim Committee will work tomorrow and Tuesday (Dec. 5 and 6) in Room 302 at the Capitol to finalize its proposal to the Legislature. The redistricting discussion is begins at 11 a.m., according to the committee's agenda.
       Redistricting – the process of periodically redrawing district lines to equalize district populations – takes place every 10 years following the federal census. The 2010 Census revealed considerable growth in the energy boom counties, particularly Campbell and Sublette counties, and in Teton County. Those numbers also found that population had declined in other counties, mostly in northeastern Wyoming and the Big Horn Basin.
       Districts must shift accordingly, though legislators have considerable discretion in doing so.
   
       House District 22 in western Wyoming
       The committee has seen considerable tension around plans to redraw lines for what is now designated House District 22. Growth in Sublette County gives it more than enough residents to form a single House district within its boundaries. But Sublette County was involved in a “gerrymandering” imposed in 2002 when northern and eastern areas of the county, including Pinedale, were combined in a district extending from south Wilson in Teton County through northern Lincoln County, up the Hoback River to Bondurant and down the east side of the county.
       Wilson and Pinedale residents have been clear that they don’t share a significant community of interest and want to be separated.
       The latest proposal for the region posted on the LSO website again was developed by southwestern Wyoming Sens. Marty Martin, a Democrat, and Stan Cooper, a Republican. It severs Sublette County from Teton County to create the new House District 22. The plan combines Wilson with Afton in a new configuration of House District 21.
     
       Eastern Wyoming
       The new plan offered by the county clerks appears to carve a seat out of the eastern border counties and to give Campbell County five representatives (compared to four under the present system).  One of those districts is combined with northern Converse County. (Analyst's caveat: The plan appears to do this but this is a cursory comparison with other plans.)

       Co-Chairman Pete Illoway, a Cheyenne Republican, told the Associated Press that the committee could meet again in late December or January if does not finalize its work this week.

Redistricting plans enter last phase

Corporations Committee readies two state plans

       Wyoming’s legislative redistricting effort will take the stage again next week in what could be the last meeting of the committee given the task of  drawing new boundaries before the February session.
       Or it might not be the last meeting.  But the Joint Corporations, Elections, and Political Subdivisions Committee will work next Monday and Tuesday (Dec. 5 and 6) in Room302 at the Capitol to finalize its proposal to the Legislature.
       Redistricting – the process of periodically redrawing district lines to equalize district populations – takes place every 10 years following the federal census. The 2010 Census revealed considerable growth in the energy boom counties, particularly Campbell and Sublette counties, and in Teton County. Those numbers also found that population had declined in other counties, mostly in northeastern Wyoming and the Big Horn Basin.
       Districts must shift accordingly, though legislators have considerable discretion in doing so.
       As it did in 2001, the Legislature’s Management Council handed the job to the Joint Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Interim Committee. In its first big decision, the committee voted in April to maintain the current structure of the Legislature with 60 House seats and 30 Senate seats. It also adopted guiding principles that include respecting county lines as much as possible, keeping districts contiguous and as compact as possible, and recognizing “communities of interest” – though the committee has not specifically defined that term.
       Over the summer, the committee held more than a dozen community meetings around the state. Those meetings largely were attended by sitting legislators, county clerks, and county commissioners. Using a web-based tool made available on the Legislature’s website, various regional plans have been developed redrawing the lines. Most of the state’s county clerks got together and drew up a full plan for the state that had been the only complete plan available. But at its last meeting the committee itself put together those regional proposals, then made a few adjustments of its own. Two working proposals resulted and can be seen on the LSO website.
       The ESPC attended many of the meetings intent on making sure the committee sticks to the principle of one person, one vote, and that it maintains a legislative district in Fremont County created in 2002 which holds a majority of Native Americans. The federal Voting Rights Act protects significant minority populations, in this case Native Americans, by prohibiting dilution of their vote by splitting them up among several districts. The committee has adhered to both principles.

       Gerrymander in western Wyoming
       But there still has been considerable tension. Growth in Sublette County gives it more than enough residents to form a single House district within its boundaries. But Sublette County was involved in a “gerrymandering” imposed in 2002 when northern and eastern areas of the county, including Pinedale, were combined in a district extending from south Wilson in Teton County through northern Lincoln County.
       The Wilson and Pinedale residents have been clear that they don’t share a significant community of interest and want to be separated. One proposal to do just that would have redrawn district lines in a way that left the House District 20 representative outside the district.
       A counter proposal was developed by southwestern Wyoming Sens. Marty Martin, a Democrat, and Stan Cooper, a Republican. It maintains the district combining Pinedale with Wilson. The Corporations committee favored the Martin-Cooper plan when it met in October.
       It appears to be impossible, or nearly so, to divide the population of northwestern Wyoming without splitting counties. The Teton plan that ended the Wilson-Pinedale gerrymander requires maintaining an existing district the combines Dubois and parts of northern Fremont County with Teton County. There’s a relatively strong community of interest argument, however, since both those local economies rely heavily on tourism and recreation.
       The committee heard at a Lander meeting that Dubois wants to be connected to the rest of Fremont County. Subsequently, other legislators say there’s a substantial number of Dubois residents who favor the link to Teton County.
        There’s also a struggle over redrawing lines in northeastern and eastern Wyoming. Campbell County grew enough to add another House seat. Population declined in relation to the rest of the state elsewhere in the region, meaning a seat will likely shift. The question is how this will be done. Will the Legislature allow Campbell County to be relatively self-contained like Albany, Laramie and Natrona counties? Or will the Campbell population be carved away to maintain something closer to the status quo?
       The two committee proposals on the LSO site show distinctly different approaches to resolving these shifts in eastern Wyoming.
       Each of the various plans will make some happy and others angry. Part of the problem is that roughly 70 percent of the Census blocks in Wyoming have no one living in them in them at all. (Redistricting rules allow dividing counties, cities, towns, and precincts but prohibit splitting a Census block.) As a result, a few districts, just as they are now, will be bigger than some eastern states. One district that encompasses a large part of Carbon County will be stretched across Sweetwater County to Farson to bring the district up to the necessary population level. There’s a lot of empty Red Desert between Rawlins and Eden.

       Plenty of action ahead
       The committee could finalize its redistricting bill at the coming meeting or schedule a final meeting prior to the session.
        And the session may bring other proposals. In a budget session, non-budget bills require a two-thirds vote of approval for introduction in either the House or the Senate. But that’s not true of redistricting bills. Any member can bring a proposal to apportion the Legislature and introduce it without a vote. Such bills likely will be referred to the Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Committee.