Park County commissioners, city leaders get together to talk issues
POWELL — Park County commissioners gathered with mayors and administrators from Powell, Cody and Meeteetse last week to discuss how the local governments can help each other on a variety of issues.
There was plenty of good news shared at the quarterly gathering: Cody noted its hiring of a new city administrator, and Powell is seeing a lot of new housing planned. Still, there’s one major challenge all the cities share: Infrastructure needs to be replaced, and every entity is staring at lower revenue thanks to a property tax cut.
The Park County government is eyeing a roughly $2.5 million cut in revenue for the next budget, thanks in large part to the 25% reduction in residential property taxes passed overwhelmingly by the Legislature, as well as the homestead tax relief program.
Commission Chair Dossie Overfield said the county can handle the reduction, but if a constitutional amendment proposing a 50% cut in residential property taxes passes in 2026, “all bets are off,” she said.
All of the representatives at the meeting mentioned struggles with needing to replace aging pieces of infrastructure at roughly the same time — including sewer, water and HVAC systems — but only having the money to replace a portion at a time.
“Infrastructure back then was cast iron pipe, and it’s ductile iron, which doesn’t go good with soils long term. So what happens is, 50-60 years ago, when this stuff was put in, nobody really thought about it, and then it just goes bad,” City Administrator Zach Thorington said, adding that with inflation, cities aren’t able to replace all of it at the same time. “So I think everybody’s in the same boat.”
Still, the local governments have completed some big projects in recent times.
The county finished an extensive, multimillion dollar HVAC upgrade of the Park County Courthouse and nearby building; Powell upgraded the HVAC system at the police department; and Cody is working on improvements to the senior center while preparing for a sewer replacement at City Hall.
Meeteetse, meanwhile, is busy with a sewage treatment plant upgrade and looking ahead to a potential Wyoming Department of Transportation street project that could significantly change the look of the community’s downtown area.
Many of the local governments’ upcoming projects are considered against a revenue question mark.
The county, for instance, is unsure what it will receive for its annual Payment in Lieu of Taxes. The payments from the federal government are meant to compensate counties for large portions of federally owned (and thus untaxed) land; in Park County’s case, much of the landmass is occupied by Yellowstone National Park, the Shoshone National Forest and the Bureau of Land Management, and thus are exempt from property taxes.
Last year’s PILT payment from the feds totaled around $2.7 million.
The county usually receives the payment in June, but Overfield said she doesn’t know whether this year’s will be affected by the review being done by the Department of Governmental Efficiency.
All of the entities are closing in on budget season. The county already hit its deadline for departments and organizations that ask for money from the county to get in their requests.
This story was published on April 17, 2025.