By Carrie Haderlie
Wyoming Tribune-Eagle, Cheyenne
(TNS)
Sept. 22 — The Wyoming Republican Party announced Saturday it will back a ballot initiative granting a statewide 50% property tax exemption to all homeowners, making clear the party’s stance on an issue that will go to the voters in November.
At a meeting in Thayne, the GOP said it will provide both “financial and marketing support” for the People’s Initiative to Limit Property Tax in Wyoming through a Homeowner’s Property Exemption, also called the People’s Initiative and Proposition One, which voters will vote on in the Nov. 3 general election.
“Wyoming homeowners deserve meaningful, durable property-tax relief, and our party is prepared to help communicate the case for this initiative to voters across the state,” said Bryan Miller, chairman of the Wyoming Republican Party, in a news release.
Just last week, the Laramie County Community College Board of Trustees unanimously adopted a resolution opposing the exemption, joining many of Wyoming’s other community college districts in opposing the ballot initiative. Citing concerns that the initiative threatens financial stability and local control for community colleges, schools, libraries and first responders, other agencies from local fire districts to sheriff’s departments have taken a similar position concerning Proposition One.
The discussion over rising property taxes—and what to do about them—is far from new. The idea of a statewide, 50% property tax cut gained traction in 2024, when former Republican gubernatorial candidate Brent Bien proposed an exemption to half of the assessed value of an owner’s primary property from property taxation, as long as the property owner had lived in Wyoming for at least a year.
In early 2025, Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray announced that the ballot initiative had gathered the necessary signatures to put the initiative before Wyoming voters this November.
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Since 2024, lawmakers have approved at least five new programs or exceptions, including an expanded property tax refund program, a long-term homeowners exemption, a doubling of the state’s veterans’ exemption, a 4% cap on annual property tax increases and a 25% homeowner’s exemption, according to Hank Hoversland, executive director of the Wyoming Taxpayers Association.
“The Legislature has given plenty of relief, and has cut taxes for homeowners through a multitude of programs,” Hoversland said.
Through the programs already in existence, voters saw reduced taxes and refunds of more than $215 million in 2025.
“That’s a large amount, when in 2025 they paid $535 million in total,” he said.
The Jackson Hole News and Guide reported in June that, if passed, the initiative could decrease property tax revenue by $124.7 million statewide, and public schools could lose around $81.3 million, according to a Wyoming Department of Revenue analysis.
When lawmakers debated what ultimately became the 25% homeowner’s exemption in 2025, that measure started as a statewide 50% property tax cut—exactly like the cut included in Proposition One. In 2025, Rep. Ken Clouston, R-Gillette, proposed a more localized approach, which would have made reductions on a county-by-county basis based on the percentage of increase in a home’s value, rather than an across-the-board 50% cut.
Clouston told the Wyoming Tribune Eagle on Tuesday that rather than supporting a county-by-county kind of approach again, or the 50% cut included in the ballot initiative, he’d prefer to see no new cuts enacted right away. Instead, Clouston said he’d like to see things settle after several years of changes.
“We need to let these other programs work for a little while,” Clouston said. “Even the effects in some of our smaller communities of the 25% cut is rough, so I just think we need to slow down a little bit and see how these other programs actually work before we jump into another program.”
However, Clouston, a Republican who is unopposed in the general election, said he does believe voters should consider the local impacts of the statewide ballot initiative. Because of the region’s mineral industry, a 25-50% cut in Campbell County does not have nearly the negative effect it would on counties like Weston and Crook.
“I think it will be hard on certain counties and certain communities, and that is what I am worried about,” Clouston said.
The Wyoming Taxpayers Association, which Hoversland said is a nonpartisan organization, has found the ballot initiative “does not meet the high standard” of being sound tax policy based on “justified, equitable, stable and transparent” change.
When it comes to the party stance on the initiative, Hoversland acknowledged that Wyoming voters are primarily Republican. But the endorsement may not drive the vote this fall, Hoversland said, pointing to a number of party-endorsed candidates who lost in the primary.
“I think Wyoming voters are independent thinkers, and they don’t like to be told how to vote,” he said. “They want information, and we are here to provide information.”
If the ballot initiative passes, it could lead to increased sales taxes, he said.
Citing “local control” as a long-held conservative value, Hoversland said that Wyoming has traditionally valued government closest to the people.
“If people want lower property taxes, they can go to their board of county commissioners, they can go to special district boards, which actually meet in their communities, rather than in Cheyenne,” Hoversland said. The initiative “isn’t quite conservative. It’s actually centralizing power in Cheyenne, rather than back in the communities these taxes fund.”
A measure passed by the Legislature earlier this year would repeal the 25% homeowner’s exemption if the People’s Initiative passes this fall, according to the Legislative Service Office.
Photo credit: Wyoming through the Lens/Facebook
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© 2026 Wyoming Tribune-Eagle (Cheyenne, Wyo.). Visit www.wyomingnews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency LLC.
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