Senator Dan Dockstader (R-Afton) shared his thoughts on the upcoming Legislative Budget Session, which begins on Monday, February 9.

(0:00) Weekday wake up on the SVI radio network another legislative preview with the session starting (0:05) up in just a couple of weeks. Senator Dan Dockstad are now in studio giving us a preview of what’s on (0:10) his mind heading into the session. Senator always a lot going on where would you like to start with (0:14) this upcoming session? Let’s just take a moment to follow up with our visit from Rob Hill from the (0:19) University of Wyoming and the career technology education programs.

He came through we took him (0:25) through and visited the Star Valley career technology education programs, Star Valley, (0:32) Cokeville and Kemmer and I would note that Star Valley is actually well prepared especially with (0:37) their automotive programs and everything else they have going on but that kind of piqued my (0:41) interest. I thought what can we do be doing across the rest of the state for career technology? (0:46) A lot of discussion about how AI will step into our lives and change our employment. (0:51) Well the career technology programs that’s where people it probably won’t change.

We always need (0:57) someone in careers that help us from everything from plumbing to architectural design things like (1:04) that that how do we put a house together? How do we make sure that our cars are repaired and running (1:11) well and how can we do this better at the local ground level at our schools? So that’s got me (1:16) kind of piqued my interest and I may slip something in a little bit late in the process (1:21) to see if we can get that taken care of and that kind of leads me to the University of Wyoming in (1:27) itself. I’ve had a little bit of feedback on the proposed budget cuts some 60 million to the (1:32) University of Wyoming. I’d like to hear more from people.

Is that where they want their university (1:37) to go? Do we want to do those cuts? One of the things I said I drove all the way up to Hewlett (1:41) Wyoming last summer and the board of trustees were meeting up there and they actually reached (1:46) out to a select group of legislators and said would you come up and meet with us for part of (1:52) an afternoon? So why not? Eight and a half hours up, eight and a half hours back. Why not? Yeah, (1:57) why not? I’d not been to Hewlett but it was a beautiful area, nice part of Wyoming. We sat down (2:04) with them and one of the things I went away with is said it’s kind of our responsibility.

I shared (2:10) with them a letter and told them I says we have a saying in our faith, lift where you stand. I said (2:15) it’s my responsibility to see what we can do to help the University of Wyoming in my part of the (2:20) state, west southwest Wyoming. So if everybody took that approach and took care and helped the (2:26) university at different places around the state, they might be able to do something.

I used a (2:32) reference. I referenced my legislative aide, my legislative intern for the last two years (2:40) out of Cody, a Cody family and she served me well. She was a University of Wyoming student (2:46) and pure cowboy through and through.

Her family was multi-generational cowboy and I said she’s (2:52) brilliant and sharp. She’s going to come back and go to school and prepare to become a physician, (2:59) a doctor, but she’ll get her all of her undergraduate degrees at the University of (3:03) Wyoming. So what can we be doing to capture students like that? I said she left.

She’s (3:08) leaving now for 18 months to go serve a mission in Thailand and she’ll come back fluent in that (3:17) language and the culture and then she’ll go back to the University of Wyoming. I straight out said (3:21) to the trustees, why don’t we work to get more of those types of students that are coming back (3:26) pursuing these professional careers and finishing all their undergraduate degrees at the University (3:30) of Wyoming. What can we be doing to entice more of those students around the state to be involved? (3:35) So back to the university, I’d like to hear from folks.

Is that something we want to make (3:42) sure that we remain strong, we keep it strong, we keep it a viable part of Wyoming? This proposed (3:48) 60 million dollar cut, they’ll feel that. So I’d like to get some feedback from people. (3:53) Is that what we want to keep doing? Is making sure that we have a strong, (3:58) viable university? At this point, I’m going to take the task on of saying I’ll work where (4:04) my responsibility is and that’s the southwest part of Wyoming.

We’ve done that, you’ve done that, (4:09) you Duke and Dell have done that by bringing on the University of Wyoming sports onto our radio (4:14) stations and we’ve brought UW sports right into the Friday sports show multiple times (4:21) and we bring Chad Baldwin on as a spokesman from the university. (4:26) We’re going to keep trying to help the university as much as we can but I’d like to hear from folks. (4:31) What do they think of their university? Are they concerned if we do any cuts there? (4:35) So university funding and that leads me to school funding.

(4:40) There is some thought that maybe we’ve reached a balance there, 95 page bill. (4:45) That’s a big thick bill but that doesn’t mean that it’s over yet. So what I’m doing rather than (4:51) just take what the legislature has delivered in their interim studies, I’ve actually reached out (4:56) to Lincoln 1, Lincoln 2, and Teton 1. Those are my school districts in my area, those are my (5:02) responsibilities.

I said, what are we doing here? Are you taking care of in Kemmerer? Are you taking (5:10) care of in Star Valley? Are you taking care of in Jackson? And Duke, the response is right now, (5:17) there hasn’t. They’re very concerned that it doesn’t quite reach the need. While we’re raising (5:22) the prices or raising the salaries of some teachers at the same time, we’re building (5:26) larger classrooms, we’re taking on more responsibilities.

Let’s take a closer look. (5:31) And to do that, I’ve reached out directly to my teachers, to my administrators, and those three (5:37) school districts to say, give me back your response as we go into the session here in (5:41) another week or so. So school funding, cautiously watching that.

University, if that’s what we want (5:49) to do to help it, then let’s go to work and help it. Schools in general, the educational programs, (5:54) I’d like to see the CT programs expanded, used further. And I’ve got a request in the healthcare (5:59) world.

Our local hospital said, why is it that we wait so long for the return of our health insurance (6:05) payments? And that was a subcommittee that I served on for a couple of years ago, where we put together (6:13) a subcommittee and said to the insurance companies, why are we waiting for those reimbursements? Why (6:18) do we drag it out with delay, delay, delay? And so my hospital has actually asked that we (6:24) step back in and say to the insurance companies, let’s do this. Let’s do this in 15 to 20 days. (6:32) Let’s get it done.

Let’s make sure the insurance is paid for for the clients. (6:38) So we’ll look at that. We thought we had it taken care of in the subcommittee.

(6:42) The insurance companies, they put myself and another house member in in charge of that. (6:48) We were originally going to meet Lander to accommodate her because she is the mother (6:53) of several children. We said, let’s meet Lander, bring the insurance companies to us there.

(6:58) And I was amused at the response. They were a little concerned about getting corporate jets (7:03) into Lander for the meetings. And I said, I can get my pickup into Lander.

I got no problem (7:09) getting there. So we ended up in Casper as a compromise for a bigger airport. And they came (7:14) in and testified.

And I thought we had some agreement that we might get some insurance (7:19) payments taken care of on a quicker basis. It’s not happening like we need to. I’m going to look (7:24) into some legislation on that as we move into the session.

I’m not going to bring a lot to the (7:29) session because this is a 20 day session. It’s very short. And at this point looks very contentious.

(7:35) And I don’t want to walk in with a bunch of legislation that, you know, we’ll get caught (7:39) up in the flurry. My concern is, make sure the schools are taken care of. Look at a CTE program (7:47) and get some feedback on what we want to do with our university.

Just a few of the matters in (7:52) relation to insurance. Duke, that’s where I’m at as we go into this winter session of 2026. (7:58) All right.

That’s Senator Dan Dockstader with the session on the way. Senator, (8:01) appreciate the report. And I’m sure we’ll hear from you throughout as well.

It’s all part of (8:04) the weekday wake up this morning on SVI.