With Budget Session Looming, Business Council Urges Lawmakers to “Choose Growth”

Wyoming News Now and Kemmerer Gazette contributed to this report.

As Wyoming heads into its legislative budget session, the Wyoming Business Council is making a simple case: voters want a stronger economy, more jobs and a future where young people can stay put — and the budget is where that future gets built.

“We can’t let fear get in the way,” said Josh Dorrell, CEO of the Wyoming Business Council. “We have the resources to set our future up — if we choose to use them.”

Fresh polling commissioned by the council found broad support for economic expansion, including responsible population growth when it means more opportunity. The results, Dorrell said, undercut the old narrative that residents prefer the state to stay “small and cheap.” In reality, voters are asking for visible progress — job creation, housing and infrastructure — and for leaders to stop the state’s slow economic slide and youth exodus.

Still, many people don’t feel heard. Dorrell wants that to change as the budget takes shape.

“Be activated,” he urged. “Show your local leaders and legislators that you support growth and want your community to thrive.”

He added that the budget gives state leaders a platform to signal what’s next — backing projects that attract employers, build housing, modernize infrastructure and nurture entrepreneurial clusters that spin off more jobs.

The council’s message also aims at the politics of silence. Too often, Dorrell noted, supporters go quiet when debate turns loud, sending the wrong signal to employers scanning the horizon for places ready to grow.

“When roughly two-thirds of people want population growth in their communities, it’s important legislators hear from them,” he said.

Wyoming’s economic headwinds are real — declining GDP trends, high youth outmigration, rising costs — but the council insists the answer isn’t to hunker down. It’s to invest. That includes giving municipalities better tools to fund local projects, pairing state support with private capital, and using the budget to catalyze jobs from Rock Springs to Sheridan and Torrington to Powell.

“We’re going to have to do some big things to set Wyoming’s future in motion,” Dorrell said. “Our budget is a great platform to do that—so our youth can find jobs and our communities can grow.”

The call to action is direct: contact your representatives, show up, and speak up for a pro-growth budget. As Dorrell put it:

“The next chapter of Wyoming’s story shouldn’t be written by fear, but by people who dare to build.”