- Even in the least populated state in the nation, being the speaker of the Wyoming House of Representatives is a big job, and the man who has it is Chip Neiman, State Representative from Hewlett in Crook County.

He'll be with us this week talking about legislative processes, politics, and priorities.

I'm Steve Peck of Wyoming PBS.

Join us for "Capitol Outlook."

(grandiose music) Welcome to Capitol Outlook.

Glad to be joined this morning by the Speaker of the House, Chip Neiman of Crook County.

We were just talking about this off camera.

You live near the town of Hewlett, which is a small town in Wyoming.

There's not a lot of big city Wyoming anywhere really.

- 309 happy people.

- 309.

And you also are the representative for Weston County to the south.

And you've raised a concern about that which I want to get to at some point.

This is your first budget session as Speaker of the House.

- Yes.

- Budget sessions are a little different from general sessions, although there's more celerity now than there used to be because we're working in budget bills more in the general session, we're working in more general session bills and what.

- Potentially, yes.

- Potentially at least in the budget session.

How's that process been going so far just generally?

- First of all thank you Steve for having me and appreciate the opportunity to get chat with you.

It's been going really well.

This was our first day.

We went through all of our consent lists of our committee bills that were handled by all of our committees through the course of the interim.

We actually moved through them quite briskly and got through all of the committee bills.

I think it was very smooth.

I think for some I think it was a, you know, some pretty, you know, pretty sad faces in there for some of that legislation and other people were very thankful for legislation getting through.

We had a recalibration bill that actually lost in the House by one vote of getting introduced.

I think that was a that was a pretty tough deal right there.

I mean- - Since you brought it up, recalibration, we're talking about K-12 schools.

- Yes, sir.

We were required by statute to recalibrate every five years and this is this would have been the first time, we'll see, there's a bill coming from the Senate.

We hope that that will make it through introduction.

It's a requirement to go back through and reevaluate our spending and what we're doing and on a what could be called an evidence-based model and to make sure that our costs are being adjusted appropriately.

And we're constitutionally mandated to fund.

I mean, that's in Article 7 of our Constitution.

And that's the big thing.

We haven't had a recalibration actually across the finish line in really, quite frankly, the last 20 years.

And we're really supposed to be doing them every five.

And so to me, it was very critical to make sure that we had something.

And what was interesting is our recalibration committee, we left that recalibration committee with a unanimous vote from both bipartisan, both houses and in the hopes that it would be able to get to the floor and have that conversation and let people make their amendments.

But sadly, it didn't make it, so hopefully we'll see what happens.

We're going to wait with bated breath to see what the Senate does and then we'll go from there.

I think the courts are definitely watching to see what happens with us.

- I was about to ask you about that.

It's extra complicated recently because the courts- - Very complicated.

It's very important we come up with something.

That's why we're really hoping that we can get something in there to start working with and hopefully all of the legislators could have had a chance to come and do some changes, but we'll see what happens.

- We happen to be here on Tuesday evening.

You would listen to the, and presided over in a fashion, the governor's state of the state address, reactions to the state of the state, anything in particular?

- Oh, I appreciate the governor's remarks.

I don't necessarily agree with everything that the governor says, but that's okay.

I mean, we don't, we all, like I've said, you know, we all have maybe understand the problems, but we maybe see different ways of trying to address those problems.

I respect our governor and I'm glad to try to work with him on these things, but I think there's some real reason and some real cause to question some of the things in the spending that has been going on and I don't think that just continuing to expand, you know, government or take over some of the roles previously held by the federal government is necessarily the right thing to do, but that's something we work out in the legislature.

That's why we're here.

We're gonna have an exchange of ideas and we're gonna sit down and try to hash this thing out and see where we really need to be in and ultimately the majority will make that call and we'll see.

Steve, when you look at what we're dealing with right now, we've got some major heavy lifts to do.

We're still looking at recalibration, potentially that comes from the Senate.

We're looking at a budget bill, which is a two year budget for the state of Wyoming.

We gotta make sure that we get that worked effectively and done right.

There's been a lot of discussion about a lot more than normal.

And then we've got, you know, your major maintenance, we've got your omnibus water bills and all these different things that are necessary.

- What's your feeling about introducing non-budget bills into the session?

Do you have a strong feeling about that or is it just if the two-thirds say let's do it, we'll do it?

- I think the representatives realize that they have, you know, a limited area that they can actually get bills into and that's why I've asked all of my members, you need to give me your top priority bills.

Just know in full, well, it's just like today, at five o'clock, no more bills being drafted, you're done.

And that's the first day of session.

Now, if you look at a general session, days into the session, you still have that time to think about things and bring things up and talk to your members.

It's happening very quickly.

And so we need you to really focus your energy on the things that are gonna be important to you and your constituents, and we're gonna work hard to try to help you have that happen.

- There's talk, well, there's no bipartisanship left in the legislature anymore.

Some people say, well, the consent list that you referred to showed that there is.

- Oh, sure.

- And- - Oh, even the recalibration bill, that was kind of interesting.

A 12 to zero determination to come out of committee.

That was pretty impressive, bipartisan.

- Some speakers are characterized, and you'll smile at this probably, as this grandmaster person who's behind the curtain, operating the levers and pulling the strings and flipping the switches to make sure everything turns out just exactly the way the speaker wants it.

True, right?

- That's not real.

Not in my life.

I mean, I guess here's the thing.

As a speaker, I believe that it is your responsibility as a leader, not just necessarily the speaker, but the leader, you're charged with the responsibility of selecting leaders for each one of your committees.

You try to pick people that are willing to work hard and they're dedicated and they're thoughtful and they're folks that you can trust to do the best job they possibly can.

I believe my responsibility as a leader is to try to bring some cohesiveness to the body, try to make sure that everybody's heard.

I try to make a very earnest effort at making sure that all the representatives have opportunity to make sure their legislation is heard.

That's my position.

But as far as trying to be behind the scenes and just, you know, pull you into my office and I'll give you a tongue lash or something 'cause you didn't toe the line, I'm not here to make you toe the line.

I'm here to try to encourage you to make sure that you do the very best job you can for your people that you represent.

And I've appointed leaders to these committees that I can, my plan was and it still is to trust them and their leadership to make sure they get the job done and listen to their committees and give them the latitude to be the leaders that I believe that they are.

And it just seems to work better that way.

You've got to trust people at some point.

And I like to find people that I can trust and not micromanage them.

I don't want to be over their shoulders saying, "Hey, you better get this done or else."

They're leaders and they're there to do a job and they're just as responsible to the people of the state of Wyoming.

And hopefully in my effort to do that, I've chosen some good people to get good work done.

- They got elected too.

- They did, they got elected and I saw today as a lot of them had real success.

Some of them really had, you know, some struggle getting some of their bills they've worked on through, but that's just the reality of it, and so.

- I doubt if there's ever been a legislator who's batted 1,000- - I don't know of any.

- sponsored bills.

- No, I don't.

It is just a part of the process, you know, it's just working through all these details.

There's different things that come into play, like the budget session, you know, a lot of those bills, those committees that have run last year, would have almost all made it.

They'd have gone on to a committee to be handled and brought to the floor.

But it just doesn't always work that way.

Let's talk about the K-12 recalibration just for a minute.

A lot of attention was paid to what I think anyone would have to agree is a pretty substantial bite taken out of the previous plan that would have reduced the number of teachers in Wyoming considerably, would have raised, increased, allowed class sizes, permitted those to be bigger than 15 years ago would have been unthinkable.

There was some change made there.

You were, you helped do some of that I know.

- Absolutely.

- What are your thoughts on K-12 education going forward?

Well, the recalibration bill failed to pass introduction in the House today.

That bill had the entire recalibration effort, that had everything in it.

That was the bill that was gonna be brought with all the different, you know, recommendations from that committee, that bipartisan pass committee.

There was a lot of moving parts in there and there was a lot of adjustment.

That bill at this point had $1.85 billion in spending for education, most we've ever actually, spent on education in the history of the state of Wyoming.

We had expansion ultimately of 70 teachers in there.

We had some corrections and things that we were going to try to do or at least let the legislature see what they wanted to do with it.

Everything from insurance to the percentages that can be retained by the districts and the reserve accounts.

We had stuff in there to be able to provide more immediate reimbursement to the districts for their expenses and we had some stuff done on the three-year rolling average.

That was going to let folks look at that and decide what they wanted to do.

We had siloing of education where we were going to put the money in there for the teachers and for the classroom.

Basically, we expanded the number of teachers basically that would be available into the classrooms.

We were looking at, you know, the standard was always kind of one teacher per classroom.

We were looking at trying to add additional people in that line for tutors and facilitators and things like that.

You know, it was very comprehensive.

There was a lot going on in that bill.

There was a lot of conjecture out there.

We had actually a meeting today with all the legislators, with our LSO staff, trying to kind of, you know, explain a lot of the different issues that were going on, a lot of misinformation out there about what was happening, what wasn't going to happen.

But I think to me, Steve, the big thing was we were trying to put together something that would be a workable bill that could get out on the floor and let all these legislators really go to it because again, like we said earlier, we need to recalibrate.

We've got to get this done.

I mean, we've got a court right now waiting to see what we're going to do.

We had some things in there that we were wanting to put off until we had a further decision on that and to be able to look a little deeper into some of the different issues like the food program, resource officers, mental health, you know, the nurses were previously in the old model, the nurses were probably under the people support portion of this.

We were actually looking at it and we had it in the bill to add another 50, over $50 million in '27 and '28.

So we would have ultimately within the next two years going on have gotten it to that level that was recommended by the folks that did the recalibration for us, Pikes and Oden.

And there was just a lot of opportunity there, I think, to go back through and change things that maybe work, it didn't work, but I was really looking forward to the conversation and seeing what we could do and all the members were able to get in there and have their say and to start having that discussion, but.

- That's a huge list that you just went through.

- A lot going on there.

- Maybe too much for one bill, is that part of the discussion?

- It's a big deal.

I mean, when you're looking at education, and we were trying to address a lot of the things that the courts had been trying to get us to address, you know, it boiled down to an 11%, just over an 11% increase.

in salaries and things like that.

But, you know, there's a lot of heartburn out there about how that was gonna happen and what was being proposed.

And I guess to me, boy, there's a lot more to me at stake in the fact that we're gonna, if we don't have something come out of the Senate, then we're gonna be looking at a special session.

We're gonna come back here and-- - You read my mind.

- It's gonna- - If we didn't get that done, that's one of the scenarios.

- Yeah, we really need to get this in front of the body and let them talk about it and see if we can come up with something that will be satisfactory for all involved.

- So as you see it, if it didn't get, if it didn't happen during the budget session, waiting till the general session, essentially a year from now, that's too late.

- Well, I think the thing is, we're looking at what the courts say.

Is the legislature really serious about recalibrating?

Is the legislature really serious about addressing some of the issues that they've brought up?

You know, and we've also got our, it's a, there's a stay order on it right now, you know, and so there's some of those things that we wanted to spend a little more time studying, but the bulk of it, I think we're right now over $50 million additional to the statutory level of spending right now, and let alone the potential of the extra, or actually really in the bill, another over, right at $50 million here going '27 and '28 to try to address those other concerns.

And so our effort was to make a good faith effort to try to make sure that we were addressing those things.

Now, whether or not that was exactly what everybody was gonna be happy with, I'm sure not, but our whole job and challenge in this was not to go in there and just try to add money to the thing, was to go in there and actually look at the cost base of it, to look at, you know, what is the real cost of education and where it's at right now.

Our consultant recommended 15 kids per K through three per teacher, and then 25, four through 12.

We actually went away from that.

We actually went back to what we're currently at, which is 16 and K through three.

Then we moved it to 22 in the intermedium classes there in the middle school.

And then we went to the 25 to 1.

So we tried to adjust that down to make that a little bit easier to do.

Just a lot in there.

And those all, every one of those things were fluid.

They all could have been handled and hopefully they will be.

- Some of those things could have been bills by themselves almost in a general session.

- Possible, yeah.

But the recalibration though is a whole point of it is to go through our educational system and look at it from top to bottom and evaluate everything and where it's at and what we're doing and what we're doing right.

You know, there was a lot of heartburn and consternation over the insurance.

We were talking about putting everybody on the state insurance plan.

We have one district that currently does that.

A lot of the districts were concerned and frustrated about the fact that that was gonna take away their ability to manage those dollars the way they saw fit.

I can certainly understand that.

I mean, it's not hard to wrap your mind around that.

But then it was interesting to have people come to me after that are in education going, I really hope that we can do this.

I really, I mean, I look forward to it 'cause they did some comparisons and they said it's a good thing.

So, and all we were doing at that point was trying to get some information together on the districts going forward.

And I think that's, you know, if it doesn't happen, Steve, I think that's the sad part of this is that it didn't have the opportunity to really have that good, honest, open, frank discussion on the floor by all the members, and giving everybody else a chance to add their two cents to this.

The intention was to put something together, and if you guys wanted to cut that apart and add to it, then you certainly had that opportunity to do that.

And we'll see, it may or may not happen.

- One of the things the governor's mentioned that got a lot of attention during the interim as well, was a decision to defund, or in the proposal to defund the Wyoming Business Council, and possibly even remove it as a sort of an existing entity.

- Right.

- Where do you come down on that or do you?

- You have to really look at it and see, is it really doing the job?

Is it really, you know, by their own numbers in this last go around, you know, it's costing about $1.2 million to create a job, 50 million spent, 40 jobs created.

I think that's, I believe that's their data.

I know that after this conversation began and we started then the appropriations team and several of them started to broach this issue, it drew immediate fire.

But then what we started to see, and I had people coming out of the woodwork talking to me about, you know, you've got to do something.

This isn't working.

At the onset of it, when it was initiated, it was a great idea.

And I think it was a little smaller.

It wasn't quite as large.

There wasn't quite as many arms to it.

And I think it's kind of gotten to where it's more cumbersome.

It's not really getting the job done that people really had anticipated.

Now there's others that will disagree with me, and that's fine.

But the reality of it is, I believe it was long overdue to be looked into and to have this conversation and challenge what's going on right now.

A lot of times these conversations haven't happened.

They haven't even been broached because people are afraid of even doing it.

And a lot of people want to just, you know, leave the status quo.

I don't think we do any of our citizens a real service if we don't ask questions like, "Show me what is it doing?

Is it really doing?

Is it getting the ROI?"

If it is, then that's fine.

If it's not broke, don't fix it.

But I've heard a lot of people, and even people that have dealt with it a lot, even gotten money from it, say, "You gotta fix this.

"This thing is not doing what it's supposed to do "and it's difficult and it's really not accomplishing "the mission it was initially intended for."

- It's not so much that you're thinking, "Well, we shouldn't have a business council."

- Oh no, I'm not against- - It can stand some scrutiny, at least.

- I think so.

I don't think that just saying, "It'll always be better "if we give it more money," is necessarily always the answer because I think a lot of times we leave the taxpayers out of that conversation.

So I think it's a good conversation to have.

I think there's a lot of people that are gonna be in on this conversation and wanting to see what they can do to refine it, restructure it, you know, help it to get back on its tracks and get done what it's supposed to be getting done, and that's building business environment in Wyoming.

But I will tell you this, Steve, as I've traveled and I have talked to different people that are in business in Wyoming, Wyoming is open for business.

I mean, I was down there at the deal when J.P.

Morgan came to the University of Wyoming and they had that governor's conference down there and Governor Gordon put that on.

And that was so encouraging to go down there and listen to those guys.

They want to do business in the Wyoming.

They're doing business in Wyoming.

They're trying to figure out how they can move more infrastructure to reinvigorate oil fields and rare elements and, you know, data centers and all these different things.

I mean, data centers, some people love them, some people don't, but the reality of it is, to me, is that we're in a race with China.

And I think it's something that we have to really look very seriously at.

I don't think we want to try to say, "Oh, no, I think we'll be fine without them."

I think we just need to figure out how to manage them, how to make them work good for the communities, make sure that they're carrying their weight and that they're generating the power that they need that they're taking from the grid.

And, you know, oil and gas and Trona and all these different things.

I've got people up in my country and, you know, creating frac sand facilities.

And I asked the gentleman, I had a conversation with him, I said, "Did you draw any state money?

"Did you go to the Wyoming business council?

"Were you ever approached?"

He said, "I don't know anything about 'em."

I said, "We're just our money doing this because you have a resource here that is necessary to develop your oil reserves that we need right now."

And I said, "So why did you come to Wyoming?"

He says, "Because Wyoming's a good place to do business."

And he said, "You guys have got great regulatory, "you know, people that are handling this, "they help us with the permitting processes."

And he said, "It's one of the best environments."

And this gentleman said, "I do business in a lot of states."

And he said, "I prefer Wyoming if we can be here."

- You're from Crook County, but you represent Weston County as well.

- Yes.

- And you raised during a discussion in the interim between sessions that you thought at least that was concerning to you, that perhaps rural Wyoming residents representing other rural Wyoming residents or rural Wyoming residents being represented by people from larger towns might not necessarily be productive or useful or beneficial to either possibly.

Talk a little bit about that if you would and do you think there's a legislative solution for it?

- Well, I think I am very concerned.

And so are the people, especially of a county like Weston County, that the rural communities are losing their voice quickly.

The way that we build up, we direct our districts and the way we lay out our apportionments and things like that, I think are no longer conducive, really, to being able to make sure that we have autonomy and that the smaller counties, you know, initially in our constitution, it said we were supposed to have, you know, each county was supposed to be, you know, a representative district.

We had that, it was not long ago.

And for a long time, and look what that did.

That made a county like Niobrara County or Weston County on the same level playing field in that Senate as Albany or Campbell or, you know, Natrona.

And now what we're seeing is in order to make these districts fit, we have to take even more land mass, or we're seeing slivers move up into municipalities.

And the rural vote is getting so diluted, and it is just not able to overwhelm them.

And you've got a lot of land area, a lot of people that are gonna be paying for potentially property taxes, you know, and they get one vote, and folks that are in the municipalities, 'cause it's just a vote.

Those rural voices are being lost, and I think it is a very real problem for us in Wyoming as we see, you know, I did some math there, and I don't remember all exactly the figures, but it took like 11 counties or something like that, like seven full or eight counties, I can't recall, I have to go back and look at my notes, to equal the town of Gillette, Wyoming.

The total populations of all that land mass and area.

And so how does that work?

How do they get fairly represented?

But, you know, if it's just one vote, and they're gonna be taxed at an alarmingly large amount or volume of dollars, and their vote is moved into a municipality or something like that in order to get the numbers that we need to fit, you know, our district sizes, rural Wyoming is starting to diminish in its voice and its ability to be represented, I believe.

And so when you look at folks like Weston County, we had to break Weston County into two pieces.

Right now, Weston County doesn't have a representative from their county that's representing them, either in the Senate or the House.

I'm their representative, and they've got a representative from Niobrara County, and then they've got a senator from Crook County, and they've got a senator from Goshen County, you know?

So I see their problem, I see their point, and I see their dilemma, and I just really believe that we need to sit down and try to really thoughtfully figure that out.

We've gone through some committee meetings we had.

Hearings passed a task force last year and a deep look into this.

I'd like to have seen it come out of management council and look into this further.

They're not giving up.

Weston County and those good folks up there in my district are still wanting to make sure that we go back to follow our Constitution, you know, and if we're not gonna follow the Constitution, there's several other thoughts, well then we need to amend the Constitution to fit what we're doing.

And so, I think the loss of the voice of the rural part of Wyoming is a very real concern and we better take it seriously or it'll be gone.

- Well, of course, this happened, the change happened because- - One man, one vote.

- There was a lawsuit, there was a court that said it had to be done and I can, we look at the math, that kind of math, you can see it.

- Well, this tiny county gets a representative and my big city gets one, and it's not fair.

And you can see, so I'm not gonna ask you to solve the problem now, but it's something you're saying you're committed to at least- - I am committed to trying to figure out what we can do to look at this.

I mean, you look at this and I know that they say, well, listen, Chip, you can't say this, you know, it's not relevant, you can't take it.

But how does Wyoming have two senators and so does California?

- Well, sure.

- How does New York have two senators and so does Wyoming?

I mean, what it does is it provides Wyoming with the ability not to be run the full length of.

And, you know, we got one congresswoman there, that's based on population, but, you know, when this thing was originally set up, they did that for a reason.

And when you've got a county like Niobrara, there was a large land area in there and few population, they're gonna have to just go along, you know, even though they're gonna be responsible for their own county and for their own land base and their roads and all these different things, Is their voice strong enough to be able to provide that?

Well, right now they've got a representative from Niobrara County, but he had to also try to find support in Weston and Goshen to get that position.

- Even in more extreme cases, you'll see people represented by someone who could not have won in their county from a different party sometimes.

That person who's my representative, I wouldn't have voted for.

Of course, nobody gets elected unanimously.

- Oh, no.

- But that is, I mean, in some cases, even more glaring than what you're talking about.

- Sure.

- So good luck with trying to get that figured out.

- Well, it's a tough nut to crack, but I think it's a heavy lift, but I think just saying, well, that's just the way it is, is not always the best answer.

- You're demonstrating, and it takes a lot of energy to do this job, starting out at the beginning of the session and I know you think you're up to it.

- I know I'm up to it.

We're gonna make it work.

- And one of the things you made time to do today was come down here at the end of a long day, sit here and speak with us, which I greatly appreciate.

Thank you.

- I appreciate the opportunity.

- And the people in the media appreciate your accessibility as well.

It's an important thing to all two of us, and obviously it is to you too.

- It is, and I think communicating with folks and the work that you guys are doing on this, it helps.

I mean, I think it's great that we're able to have these conversations and to be able to relay this, and you can ask me questions and I can try to answer them and hopefully bring some clarity or bring some phone calls.

What are you thinking?

Crazy?

What are you doing?

- Wyoming Representative Chip Neiman, Speaker of the House of Representatives.

Thanks for being with us on "Capitol Outlook."

- Thank you, Steve.

It's been an honor to be with you.

- Thanks.

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