Note: The following came in from a Wyoming Democrat. While we attempt to share work that reflects the WDP platform, you may come across some words that are not exactly what WDP would have written. Perhaps you will agree with and value what you read below, perhaps not. Your mileage may vary. -ed.

This opinion was first published by the Wyoming Tribune Eagle on Nov. 26, 2025. -ed.

My family has been part of this state for more than a century, and throughout that time, one principle has guided us as Wyomingites: we take care of the communities that take care of us.

That’s not sentimental nostalgia. It’s the reason our schools stayed open, our rural fire districts kept responding and our small towns survived more than one economic bust.

Some hear the term “lived experience” and dismiss it as philosophical or soft. It isn’t. Lived experience is data. It is frontline evidence gathered in real time by the people directly affected by the policies you write. It reveals gaps spreadsheets can’t see, unintended harms fiscal notes can’t measure and human outcomes no agency report ever fully captures.

I’ve been doing research “in the field” of being an average Wyomingite — and one or two banana peels away from devastation — for my entire life.

Ignoring experiential data is legislating without all the information. Including it, policy becomes grounded in reality, not assumptions. Lived experience isn’t optional or anecdotal; it’s a critical form of evidence that makes decisions smarter, safer and more effective.

I write this as an expert in my field: being an average Wyomingite. Like many families here, mine lives paycheck to paycheck. So yes, the idea of paying less in taxes is appealing. And I understand the fear many older homeowners on fixed incomes feel when valuations rise. That anxiety is real. It deserves real solutions.

But eliminating residential property taxes is not a solution. It is destabilization disguised as relief.

Property taxes fund the backbone of community safety and opportunity: schools, fire departments, EMS, mental-health care, victim services, senior programs and rural infrastructure.

When lawmakers remove that foundation, they aren’t easing financial strain — they are weakening the systems that keep people alive, educated and safe.

Ask any rural fire district what happens without stable funding: response times lengthen, staffing shrinks, and people lose their homes or their lives. These aren’t hypotheticals. They are lived consequences when public services are forced to operate without predictability.

Shifting the burden to sales taxes doesn’t magically solve the problem. Sales taxes are volatile and regressive — they rise fastest on the people with the least disposable income. Wealthier households barely feel them; low- and middle-income families absorb the blow. That isn’t reform. It’s redistribution upward.

And when lawmakers strip away reliable property-tax revenue, it forces counties and school districts to return to the Legislature — likely every session — just to keep the lights on. Promising to “revisit” sales-tax adjustments later is not a plan. It’s a gamble taken with other people’s safety.

Eliminate residential property taxes, and you don’t just adjust a tax structure. It alters the entire trajectory of public services in this state. Those living closest to the margins will feel it first and hardest.

Residential property taxes are more than a line item. They are a shared commitment to maintaining the systems that keep Wyoming strong: our schools, fire districts, emergency responders and the infrastructure that holds communities together. Generations before us invested in these systems with care and responsibility. We owe the same stewardship.

Wyoming values freedom, but also responsibility. We value local control, but also local commitment. We value community, and we understand that what we invest in today shapes the Wyoming our children inherit tomorrow.

I’m not writing simply as a homeowner. I’m writing as a mother who wants her children to grow up in a Wyoming where schools are strong, emergency response is reliable and communities have the resources they need to thrive. Reducing revenue without a clear, sustainable replacement puts those fundamentals at risk.

We cannot continue to sacrifice short-term discomfort for long-term dysfunction.

When my children are grown, they won’t remember the talking points debated in the Legislature. They won’t remember today’s headlines or the political noise around these decisions. What they will feel is the Wyoming we handed them.

They will feel whether their schools were strong enough, their communities safe enough and their opportunities wide enough to make this state a place they want to build a life.

Kids don’t get a say in which cans we kick down the road. That is why eliminating residential property taxes is not responsible governance. The Legislature must pursue real, sustainable reform — not reckless experiments that shift costs onto families already stretched thin.

Wyoming’s future deserves better than short-term politics. It deserves stewardship.

Author: Josephine Carlson