Tagged: Sequester

Wyoming Governor Matt Mead says the state will have to live with some 53 million dollars in cuts to Wyoming’s share of mineral royalties. 

By law the state is guaranteed 50 percent of the revenues from mineral leasing on federal lands in the state.  But federal officials ruled that those funds are subject to being sequestered.

 “Does not look like we are going to have any legal recourse to stop that sequestration of those dollars. So our best hope, it looks like, is what the congressional delegation can do.”

The Wyoming Military Department is planning to temporarily trim the hours of more than 430 employees due to federal budget cuts.  The furloughs would begin at the end of April and extend until the end of September.  Colonel Tammy Maas  says the reduction in hours will impact their day to day operations, but shouldn’t impact necessary missions.

“Make it difficult to get all of

Cheyenne Regional Airport could lose its air tower as a result of the federal sequester. The Federal Aviation Administration is losing funding for 100 towers nationwide, each of which serve airports with a limited number of flights.

David Haring is director of aviation at the airport. He says the airport will continue to operate… but losing the air tower is a big deal, because it’s an important safety tool.

March 1st a series of automatic cuts to federal spending—called the sequester—went into effect. Education is one of the areas Wyoming will feel the cuts most acutely. A White House report says the state will lose millions of dollars in school funding.

Jim Rose, interim director of the Wyoming Department of Education, says a 5% cut to the federal education budget would mean special needs students would get less funding.

Senator Mike Enzi continues to say that the budget sequester will take effect on March first. 

The Republican told the state Legislature that the sequestration will roll back the federal budget to 2008 levels and will feature an eight-percent cut. 

Enzi says instead of across the board cuts, he says Congress should have taken a page from the Wyoming Legislature and had federal agencies participate in the exercise.