We stand for the pledge, please.

And one nation under God.

Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the City of Sheridan's May 11th, 2026 study session.

It's 5 30, so we'll get going.

We have a total of five items on the agenda for tonight.

So we'll just get right into it.

Our first one is discussion of resolution 08-2-6 confirming the placement of the ballot question for one cent slash GPET or general purpose excise tax on the vote about thank you, the ballot.

And with this is our city attorney Brad Timish.

Mayor, Council, thank you.

As the mayor stated, I'm before you today, discussion of resolution 8-26 approving the submission of the ballot question for one cent GPET.

On Wyoming Statute 39-15-204 AI allows a county to impose an excise tax at a rate of 0.5% up to 2% upon retail sales of tangible personal property, admissions, and services made within that county.

To impose that tax, the commissioner and 50% of the governing bodies within that county have to consent to and then consent to the proposition being submitted to the voters for the general election every four years.

Provides for the cover governing body's approval to the submission of the proposition to cover to continue GPET to the voters of Sheridan County in the November 2026 general election.

Also provided in the resolution provide how the state will allocate those funds to facility infrastructure, public safety, water quality, open space, parks, pathways, and recreation, community development, public health and community projects, heritage history and arts, and seniors and family.

And then again, if this submission is approved, approved by the governing body and 50% of the other municipalities within the county and the county commissioners, this question will be presented to the voters come November.

Shall the Board of County Commissioners for should the Board of County Commissioners for Sheridan County, Wyoming continue to impose an excise tax of 1% upon retail sales of tangible personal property admissions and services made within the Sheridan County for the purpose of general revenue as set forth in Wyoming Statute 39-15-203A?

And then again, the the questions will be or the answers are for the county sales tax or against the county sales tax.

Any questions?

Any questions on this?

Pretty straightforward.

Which of those bullets does general operating costs for the city fall under Mr.

Mayor, I'll I'll take a stab at that.

I I'm not sure if I fully understand the question, but facilities and infrastructure, public safety, water quality, uh, open spaces, parks, pathways.

Um pretty much the the uh probably the top four ones directly uh address uh city operations of some sort.

Um we obviously don't have a public health uh and we don't well we community programs could loosely with our parks uh and the city uh uh Sheridan Public Arts Committee would fall under the arts uh piece of the sixth bullet.

Um so to some degree uh the top six seniors and family obviously is not a city uh function that we have internal to our operations.

Okay, uh presuming thank you for that answer.

Um presuming that we are still potentially multiple years away from uh the airport being self-sustaining, um where would our contributions to the airport fall into that?

I think it's under uh yeah, probably facilities and infrastructure, it could be under a community programs to some degree.

Okay.

I guess the reason I'm asking these questions is because we've all been on one side or another of the fence of claiming that people either do or do not have any right to object to or have objection to the GPET spending because they were all told how we're gonna spend it.

And I think if uh it's broad enough terminology that it can include anything that's within you know the purview of the city, that uh maybe it would be uh helpful to citizens to just know that some of this money will be spent on the general operating costs of the city to go along with the previous city attorney's um statement that the city would have to essentially take a pay cut if it didn't pass.

So what that essentially means is that um our city at its current level of spending has become dependent upon the passing of an optional tax in order to maintain that level of spending, and I think that that's something that a lot of the citizens are not hearing when they're reading this list.

Go ahead.

Can we have some clarity on the statement we made about um being able to get as employees?

What do you say about?

I'm sorry, I don't mean to be the general operating costs of the city.

It was stated previously that the that the city would have to quote unquote take a pay cut, in other words, uh reduce its planned expenditures if this didn't pass.

Okay, so Clarity, I'm just I'm sorry, you should pay code years meant the city, not the employees.

Okay, just for clarity, thank you.

Go ahead.

I mean, that's just a fact.

If our income goes down, we're gonna have to adjust for it.

That's all it is.

It's not that we're overspending, it's that this has been voted in, and we're spending the money that we have.

If we have to cut, it's gonna hurt.

So something's gonna give.

Go ahead, counselor.

Well, one of the things that I really like about the um GPEP funding is how much that helps us in our public works projects.

If you all remember last week when we had the presentation of all the infrastructure projects that we had going, they're all funded through GPET.

If we lose that GPEP funding, your infrastructure projects are gonna go way down because we simply will not have that funding source to supply all those projects, our water lines, sewer lines, all of um Rotomill and Overlay.

Infrastructure is important to this community.

We have heard that over and over and over again, and that's why that GPA is important for that infrastructure.

Okay, anything else?

Mr.

Mayor.

Yes.

I just want to add one thing.

I had a conversation with the uh county administrative director um, and uh just as a point of clarification, uh the county is waiting to vote on this until they have two municipalities that way they'll be the third vote.

And I I in the past they've always had all four, but uh, but they're waiting for the first two.