Big Horn County authorities feeling pinch of property tax reform
LOVELL — Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder when it comes to the various forms of property tax relief approved earlier this year by the Wyoming Legislature.
For property owners, there’s a lot to like about seeing hundreds of dollars lopped off the amount-owed total on the 2025 Notice of Assessment they received from the Big Horn County Assessor’s Office.
But as the number crunchers of the county’s various taxing jurisdictions are discovering, that relief will come with a cost.
Because lawmakers were unable to agree on a mechanism to backfill lost revenue, the county and every municipality and special district within its borders are now facing some significant revenue cuts. In some cases, the loss is in the tens of thousands of dollars.
Big Horn County Assessor Gina Anderson and her staff have already factored the 25% exemption, a requirement of Senate File 69, into every county resident’s Notice of Assessment.
Anderson said she and her staffers have been busy the last few weeks answering questions and entering applications for another form of property tax relief, known as the Long-Term Homeowners exemption.
With the passage of House Bill 3, taxpayers can now exempt half of the value of their property tax on a primary residence if they have paid residential property tax in Wyoming for 25 years or more and are age 65 or older.
The deadline to apply was Tuesday, May 27.
Anderson said her office had processed 583 applications as of Friday, May 23.
The flipside
Anderson has calculated the impact of the reform on every taxing authority in the county.
The most significant reductions, in terms of dollars, won’t be the most impactful ones.
Each of the four school districts is facing more than $200,000 in cuts to their county tax revenue.
BHCSD#1 (Burlington-Cowley), which levies 44 mills, will see a cut of $317,424.
BHCSD#2 (Lovell), which levies 45 mills, will see a cut of $359,397.
BHCSD#3 (Greybull), which levies 44.5 mills, will see a cut of $352,894.
BHCSD#4 (Basin), which also levies 44.5 mills, will see a cut of $225,705.
But Sara Schlattmann, business manager of the Greybull schools, said school districts are protected against cuts in local tax revenue by the Foundation guarantee, which makes up the difference.
“That isn’t how it works for towns or our BOCES (Board of Cooperative Education Services) and rec district, which are subject to the school district’s total value,”said Schlattmann. “In theory, if what they’re telling me is going to occur occurs, if it works the way it’s supposed to, school districts should get their money regardless.
“If they don’t, that’ll create a whole new problem.”
Other authorities
Big Horn County, which levies 12 mils, is expecting a reduction in revenue of $338,436.
Anderson attributes $226,568 of that to the 25% across-the-board cut (SF69), $74,506 to the Long-Term Homeowners cut (HB3) and $37,362 to the 4% cap (HB45). In anticipation of the cuts, the county commissioners have asked department heads to trim their budgets by 10%. Turning to the municipalities, each of the nine receives 8 mills.
According to Anderson, the projected funding cuts are as follows: Basin, $18,942; Burlington, 3,191; Byron, $8,300; Cowley, $16,087; Deaver, $2,354; Frannie, $1,531; Greybull, $26,525; Lovell, $34,767, and Manderson, $1,145.
Cemetery districts, which receive 3 mills, may be impacted the most because they typically run on smaller budgets. Anderson said the Otto cemetery, as an example, will see a cut of $1,182 when its total budget is just $15,000.
The others and their projected cuts: Burlington, $4,767; Byron, $4,264; Cowley, $9,365; Deaver/ Frannie, $2,798; Emblem, $1,292; Hyattville, $1,681 (on 2.38 mills); Lovell, $23,890; and South Central Special ($15,502).
Here are the rest of the residential exemptions that were provided by Anderson:
• Byron Solid Waste Disposal, 3 mills, $4,260
• Fire District 2 (Basin), 3 mills, $3,895
• Fire District 3 (Manderson), 3 mills, $2,286
• Fire District 4 (Otto-Burlington-Emblem), 3 mills, $7,578
• Fire Protection 1 (Lovell), 2.5 mills, $12,056
• Fire Protection 5, 3 mills, $1,337
• North Big Horn Senior Citizens Service, 1 mill, $13,154.
• North Big Horn Hospital, 6 mills, 78,924
• Rural Health Care, 4 mills, $50,247
• Shoshone Conservation, 0.5 mill, $6,772
• South Big Horn Conservation, 0.5 mill, $7,534
• South Big Horn County Hospital, 6 mills, $89,304
• South Big Horn Senior Citizen’s Service, 1 mill, $14,888
• BHC Weed & Pest, 2 mills, $57,306.
Totals
According to the assessor’s office, the 2025 valuation for the county before the exemptions were applied is $1,708,064,338. Subtracting total exemptions of $297,024,366 drops it to $1,411,040,012.
From that, Anderson set the total local assessed value for 2025 at about $134 million. Last year, it was about $153 million.
The median residential tax bill for 2024 was $1,191.
“That isn’t how it works for towns or our BOCES and rec district, which are subject to the school district’s total value,” Anderson said.
This story was published on June 4, 2025.