Evanston Mayor Will Davis (far left) addressed local legislators with a detailed chart on the city’s budget and major concerns he believes directly affect business, community and the Evanston way of life. HERALD PHOTO/Becky Crum

Community members, city and county officials met at Evanston’s Historic Machine Shop Thursday evening to express concerns to local legislators about economic crisis, budget cuts and job losses.

Senator Saundra Meyer, Representative Owen Petersen and Representative Terry Kimball will take citizen concerns to the budget session, which convenes Feb. 8 in Cheyenne.

Mayor Davis presented a chart for review to emphasize Evanston’s city budget. He said local sales taxes are going down and the city is feeling the hit.

Mayor Davis said the city has approximately $1 million less in revenues than last year at this time.

“The good news is that even though Evanston has $1 million less — the revenues to expenditures show we have spent $400,000 less than we have taken in,” Davis said.

Davis said the department heads are being cautious to stay within those numbers, but he doesn’t know if they can maintain that balance thoughout the rest of the year.

He said the governor’s proposed budget contains cuts to cities, towns and counties of 65 percent.

“That doesn’t seem fair when that budget adds 44 positions in the state government, funding of school capital construction projects and has asked state agencies to reduce the budgets by 18 percent,” Davis said.

Mayor Davis said that, as elected officials, they are the ones people call on first when they are concerned about the community and they deserve to be a higher priority to the representatives.

“Hopefully we can get some support in that process. Wyoming is a great state and it isn’t going to function as well as it does if the local county officials, state officials and interested council members don’t have the necessary budgets,” Davis said.

Senator Meyer said there is a limited amount of money that legislators can put into bills and much of the money is already earmarked.

“We do have a lot of constraints on us, but we will do what we can. If the state uses its reserves, we don’t know what we will face in six months to a year. We are doing the best we can do to be conservative,” Meyer said.

Meyer said they do know and appreciate all the services that towns provide for the state.

City Clerk Jim Davis said he feels the representatives are oblivious to what towns are facing in the economic crisis in the state. He said the city is hurting.

“I have never seen the situation as bad as it is now. We have lost a lot of businesses, and when we lose businesses, we lose jobs,” Davis said.

Davis said he feels the legislature needs to diversify the economy. He said every four or five years, they worry about the budget because the legislature will not see fit to look for ways to diversify the economy.

“We can no longer continue to go through the boom and bust cycles. We need to start looking for ways to diversify our economy. We can’t keep going down the same path,” Davis said.

Davis said new schools are not needed with the economic distress. He said with the direction the economy is heading there won’t be any students in the schools because there won’t be jobs for families to exist here.

“I know that is far-fetched, but why build a new school in Mountain View when there are no jobs for families to be there?” Davis said.

Davis said that it appears the leadership in the state doesn’t care enough about small business and diversification.

Meyer said she is very supportive of diversifying Wyoming’s economy, but unfortunately it isn’t always as easy as it seems to be.

“Because of our population and different factors, it isn’t easy, but I do realize we need to do something. In order to increase not only new businesses, but to support the existing businesses as Jim pointed out. If we don’t support Main Street and existing businesses, then we are losing,” Meyer said.

Meyer said she will work on trying to get all the legislators to look at economic diversity.

“Some of it is incentive. We are a very low tax state. Compared to other states, we have very low taxes. What happens is when we are trying to attract business to the state, we can’t give tax credits that other states can offer,” Meyer said.

Meyer said the other legislators need to be educated on the importance of diversification and she will do what she can.

Other citizen concerns that were brought before the legislators addressed the possibility of a toll on I-80, no strings attached solutions to solve Wyoming economic troubles, more support for small businesses in state and the transportation industry. One citizen noted that when we raise the taxes on trucks to use our highways and pay higher fuel costs, then we feel the rate increases also in the goods that those trucks provide for us. The question was asked what new jobs were being created in the government, how they would benefit the state and whether they received a cost of living adjustment.

Senator Meyer explained the cost of living adjustment. She said in 2009 it was 3.7. She said research was done to determine what the cost of living would be. She said the cost of living increase is way more than the actual cost that employees receive. She said for this year, there would be no cost of living adjustment and no raises.

“We did have money at the time that was applied, but I can tell you that as far as I know there will not be any this year,” Meyer said.

Meyer said anyone who had concerns they wanted the representatives to address in the session could call the receptionist in the House or Senate in Cheyenne at 777-7711 or by calling the voter hotline at 777-8683.

“One of the best ways to reach us is to call the receptionist. We can’t leave the floor during the session, but they will give us the message with your name and phone number and we will call you back. If you just want to call to let us know what you would like us to vote on, you can call the voter hotline number,” Meyer said.