JACKSON, Wyo. — The Jackson Town Council passed a resolution on June 5, approving the fiscal year 2024 budget that begins July 1. The meeting included a public hearing and a discussion about the final budget item, community health and human services.
Eight organizations that provide health and human services requested funding for FY24 that exceeded their FY23 budget appropriations.
The increase in budget requests totals $223,284 and ranges from as little as $2,375 from Immigrant Hope Wyoming/Idaho to as much as $100,000 from Teton Youth & Family Services.
Leadership from Community Safety Network, Teton Youth & Family Services and Mental Health and Recovery Services of Jackson Hole each spoke briefly during public comment sharing data points on their increase in demand and need for more funding to retain employees and offer services.
Councilmember Jim Rooks said he wants to see full funding requests allocated to the eight organizations. He noted that allocating the funding this year doesn’t set a precedent that the funding will always be available “if things get tighter.”
While Vice Mayor Arne Jorgensen said he supported allocating the funding, he said the town needs to focus on increasing revenues for future budgets.
“This budget works right now, based on several factors,” Jorgensen said. “They include unfilled positions, which is not a strategic way to do budgeting but it’s a reality that gives us some flexibility this year, it’s based on a carryover of one-time revenue over the past couple of years, again that’s not repeatable, and it’s based on deferred maintenance. Those are not sustainable over time.”
Councilmember Jonathan Schechter said he is supportive of the funding but suggested the requests would only keep coming.
“My personal request to each of the organizations is to recognize that there’s a real tendency to come back with whatever we give you and use that as a basing and try and build it more and more and more,” Schechter said. “That is not going to work unless something dramatic happens with our local economy.”
“Just because we have to say ‘no’ doesn’t mean we don’t support something,” Schechter said. “Funding something and supporting something are two very separate things that sometimes coincide 100 percent and sometimes don’t coincide at all.”
Sell Chambers took issue with the comments, saying she is frustrated when “we hear over and over again about the funding and the revenue.”
She said funding and revenue sources get kicked down the line. “What it comes down to is we have opportunities and we have shied away from them.” She cited a 1% increase in the sales tax and a 2% increase in the lodging tax as possible solutions.
“There are things we can do,” Sell Chambers said. “We have chosen not to.”
Morton Levinson responded to Sell Chambers saying, “Your comments would have been appreciated in the budget process. They are appreciated now, but maybe if you would have shared them in the budget process we would have considered them more.”
Sell Chambers was widely absent from the budget discussions over the past month because she was on medical leave for an injury that occurred five weeks ago.
Rooks spoke up again and said that there are no strings attached to increasing budgets for health and human service organizations.
The council voted unanimously to allocate the funding. Later on in the meeting, they passed a resolution approving the FY24 budget.
The town will again collect a 0.5 mill levy again in this budget cycle, something the town began doing in FY2021. Prior to 2021, the town did not collect property taxes for 47 years.
According to the town, a 0.5 mill levy generates about $250,000 in revenue. Overall tax revenue for FY24 is estimated at $23.9 million, including the fifth cent sales tax.
The Teton County Board of County Commissioners recently released a draft budget. They will host an FY24 budget hearing on Monday, June 26. Public comment can be shared during the hearing or at the regular meeting on June 20. The FY24 budget adoption will be held on Tuesday, June 27.
