By Joseph Beaudet
The Sheridan Press
Via-  Wyoming News Exchange

SHERIDAN — Wyoming veterans whose service did not include conflict are not eligible for the state’s veterans’ property tax exemption. The House Transportation, Highways and Military Affairs Committee voted Thursday to advance a bill to change that.

House Bill 67, “Eligibility for veterans property tax exemption-amendments,” would expand eligibility for the program to people who served at least two years in the Wyoming National Guard or Wyoming Air National Guard, have lived in Wyoming for at least three years and were discharged under honorable conditions.

“There are members that serve our state and our nation and with commitment and risk, they deploy overseas, respond to domestic crises and are often the first on the ground when Wyoming faces wildfires, floods, winter storms and other emergencies,” said the bill’s primary sponsor, Rep. Marilyn Connolly, R-Buffalo.

Befittingly, Wyoming National Guard Adjutant General Maj. Gen. Gregory Porter, recapped some Wyoming guardsmen’s work over the last year on Thursday morning in both the Senate and House of Representatives, just a couple of hours before the committee reviewed the bill. The work included a medical emergency evacuation in Antarctica, a deployment to Syria and a rescue mission for a plane that crashed in the Bighorn Mountains.

Porter told the committee expanding the exemption would “certainly” benefit guardsmen and it’s important to treat active component members and Guard members equally. He added the expansion would be a nice asset for recruitment and retention efforts.

“What a nice incentive this would be for our men and women to have this as part of the veterans population,” Porter told the committee. He noted that, under current law, the guardsmen who participated in the Antarctica evacuation and plane crash rescue would not be eligible for the veterans’ property tax exemption.

Johnson County resident and 31-year veteran John Zorbas said his son recently returned to the U.S. from a mission in Poland, where three soldiers within his brigade died by drowning.

“Peacetime doesn’t mean soldiers aren’t dying and that their lives and their bodies aren’t sacrificed,” Zorbas said. “So, that’s why I’m encouraging the committee to accept this and push it forward, because we all serve. We all serve with our whole life.”

The committee voted unanimously to send the bill to the full House; it could be re-referred to the House Revenue Committee, though, which is where most property tax bills are reviewed.

A mirror bill in the Senate was introduced Thursday and referred to the Senate Revenue Committee.