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New report: Low-income residents in Wyoming pay an effective tax rate more than three times higher than the state’s wealthiest One Percent
Wyoming’s lack of an income tax means the rich get a free ride.
Exit Interview: Kathryn Lenth — How to lose a computer scientist (VIDEO)
Computer scientist Kathryn Lenth was happy to make Casper home, until she and her partner, Kristen, realized Wyoming might not be the best place for LGBT people to live. Now Kathryn is training the tech workforce of tomorrow … in Utah.
Why won’t Wyoming reform its cannabis laws? Ask a cop lobbyist.
Powerful police lobbyists have convinced the Wyoming State Legislature to ignore citizens’ wishes and refuse to reform the state’s draconian marijuana laws. Now, they’ve taken their crusade public.
The Legislature didn’t increase class sizes. But lawmakers who want to cut Wyoming education budgets have found a back-channel way to do it.
The State School Facilities Commission has one job: to make sure Wyoming students have good schools. But the commission has inserted itself into the debate over education budget cuts—and it’s hard to believe the commissioners came up with the idea on their own.
Abrupt closure of successful institute demonstrates another UW leadership failure
The decision to close the University of Wyoming’s Biodiversity Institute will hurt the school’s fundraising and community engagement efforts—not to mention scientific learning on campus and throughout the state.
Exit Interview: Rattawut Lapcharoensap and June Glasson — The (hidden) costs of the UW budget cuts (VIDEO)
EXIT INTERVIEWS is a new series profiling talented people who are leaving Wyoming as a result of boneheaded policy decisions. This episode features a (former) UW professor and his wife, a (former) pillar of the Laramie arts community.
Miller: The solution is a state income tax (but…)
Rep. David Miller knows a state income tax would largely solve Wyoming’s revenue problems. But he’d rather shackle the state even more securely to boom-and-bust mining industries.
Wyoming’s budget is the smallest it has been in 15 years. We still need new revenues.
The deepest cuts in more than a decade couldn’t fix Wyoming’s “structural deficit.” When will lawmakers realize more cuts aren’t the answer?
UW Board moves to grant itself unchecked power over reshaping the university during financial crisis
The board will vote next week to give itself the ability to single-handedly fire tenured faculty, cancel courses, and eliminate academic departments—big responsibilities for a group that’s proven itself incompetent.
Session Recap: Funding restored, Wyoming must now work to rebuild its suicide prevention program from scratch
After completely defunding Wyoming’s statewide program in 2017, the Legislature allocated $2 million this year for suicide prevention. The scope of damage—and what a new program will look like—is unclear.
Medicaid work requirements didn’t pass this year, but they fit too well with Wyoming’s history of denying public assistance to assume they won’t be back
A work requirements bill passed the Senate with gusto, suggesting there’s no small number of lawmakers eager to kick folks in Wyoming off Medicaid.
Better Wyoming director Nate Martin appears on “Speak Your Piece” talk radio show
Better Wyoming director Nate Martin spoke with Darian Dudrick for the Cody-based “Speak Your Piece” talk radio show about what BW is, what we want, and how we’re going to get it.
Session recap: Another year, another effort to criminalize edible marijuana fails. Is the Legislature getting ready to turn a corner on cannabis?
In killing yet another proposal to criminalize edible cannabis, a House committee doubled down on its position that Wyoming needs marijuana reform
Session recap: How the death of “Wyoming Public Lands Day” illustrates mining’s grip on the Legislature
What should have been an uncontroversial win for public lands advocates became a way for mineral industry-connected lawmakers to demonstrate their supremacy.
Book review: The currents young Wyomingites swim against
In an essay for High Country News, BW director Nate Martin looks at two books that explain why Wyoming can’t keep its young talent.