Speculation about the infusion of federal stimulus cash into Wyoming continues unabated, with state officials shy about asserting a hard figure for what the state will get. You’ll read $501.8 million in the paper tomorrow; or possibly $516.8 million – both figures far underestimate what’s coming our way.

Those numbers – released today by Lynn Boomgaarden, Wyoming’s Director of State Lands and Investments – represent the minimum Wyoming government will receive in discretionary or non-discretionary funds, and she acknowledges the estimates are conservative. But if you look down the list – highway money, water money, education, and so on – you see a lot of blanks: grants to combat violence against women, grants for home weatherization, funds for Health Information Technology, areas where we don’t know yet what the rules will be sharing in the largesse. And there are other programs where we know the total dollars available nationally, but haven’t yet figured what we will apply for - like $1.5 billion (nationally) to combat homelessness; or $125 million (nationally) in rural law enforcement grants. There is funding available in all these categories, and if Wyoming fills out the forms, and makes a few rules, we’ll get some of it - but it’s not part of the $516.8 million calculation.

But that’s not all.

The $516.8 million represents only what comes to and through state government. There will also be millions distributed through federal agencies that are very big players in Wyoming, like the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service. And there will be tax cuts that go directly to individuals, and work-study funds for Wyoming citizens that don’t flow through state agencies.

Gov. Dave Freudenthal and his staff are wisely cautious in what they say about the “moving target” of the stimulus package, which is still being shaped back in White House and various federal agencies. But it’s clear that it goes far beyond the formula dollars for transportation, education and other areas, and well beyond the $516.8 million identified so far. Let’s take a guess – really, nothing more than a guess – and say it will be above $600 million when the auditors have moled their way through the budgetary labyrinth. And that’s conservative.

Lynn Boomgaarden will be a guest on Wyoming PBS’ Capitol Outlook this Friday.

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It should surprise no one to hear that tempers fray in the legislature as the session scrambled toward the close. And the hottest friction points are often between House and Senate Committees which have to work out differences regarding key bills in last-minute conferences. Publicly, legislators are generally polite. Behind the scenes and off the record, it’s a lot more interesting.

It’s not just soap opera interesting – often, there is important legislation at stake, such as the House bills to toughen penalties for DUI (driving under the influence), which died this week. Legislators say part of the problem was the poor relationship between the Senate Judiciary Committee (chaired by Sen. Tony Ross, R-Cheyenne) and House Judiciary (chaired by Rep. Keith Ginghery, R-Jackson).

Appropriations is another hot spot. There were threats on the Senate side (chaired by Sen. Phil Nicholas, R-Laramie) not to pass out a supplemental budget bill, because of battles with the House committee (chaired by Rep. Rosie Berger, R-Sheridan). That’s not likely to happen – there are too many goodies for too many legislators in the spending bill – but the two sides are barely speaking.

Same goes for the Labor, Health and Social Services committees (House side chaired by Rep. Jack Landon, R-Sheridan; Senate side led by Sen. Charles Scott, R-Casper), where the enmity spans a couple of legislative sessions.