Taxes, Education and Wind. More news from Cheyenne.

A proposal to tax wind energy is circulating in Cheyenne again.

Sooner or later the state is going to do this.  As coal declines and wind ascends, a new tax base is going to have to be found, and wind is going to be part of that picture.

The question is, really, when?  Too early, and it might be denning the wind pups before they are weaned, which we don't want to do.

That tax money, of course, is what goes to education, and it has for many years now.  Ever since the Wyoming Supreme Court determined that district by district education funding, which had been the state's model for eons, was unconstitutional.

That decision was based pretty solidly on the text of the state's constitution.  Education in Wyoming is a fundamental right, and the Court held that unequal funding meant unequal education.  That's no doubt true, but adjusting to it only really worked well when there was a lot of cash.  Now, there isn't.

Sen. Charles Scott is proposing to amend the state's constitution to go back to the old system.  I.e., district by district.

One thing that can be said, of course, about that system is that it obviously worked as it was done from statehood until the 1970s.  The flipside is that the new system also worked and a lot of really nice schools were constructed under it.  Both sides of this argument have some good points to them. The fundamental problem underlying both is cash.

And that may be the rub.  Wyomingites were really good about funding schools for decades and decades, but like so many such things, a lot of that sort of evaporated when the state took over, or perhaps it didn't evaporate and something changed in the culture.  At least locally the voters turned down to replace a high school swimming pool when it was in fact much needed, although that may be deceptive as that vote was also tied to an unpopular school facility that was at the high school level but not a high school.  The teachers themselves opposed that and its been a clear failure as enrollment for it just isn't there.  So, in other words my example may not be a very good one.

But then there's also the example of the new Courthouse.  When that came before the voters a couple of decades ago the voters also rejected it, and did so to such an extent that the state actually funded a new county courthouse, which is really remarkable.  But that may have taught the local voters that if you refuse to pay, maybe the state will.  Or maybe it hasn't.

Indeed, all of this may reflect a highly transient local population.  People aren't hugely keen on being taxed for something they aren't going to use, including if they're headed out when the economic tide turns, as many people have.

Anyhow, I suspect an amendment to the state constitution to unring the bell on the Wyoming Supreme Court's 1970s vintage rulings in this area aren't going to occur. . .yet.  But you do have to wonder if at some point that becomes tempting, as it passed the ball back where it had been, and the legislature won't have to deal with it.

Before then, however, my guess is that we'll have a tax on wind energy.