The Star Valley Independent is a member of the Wyoming News Exchange. These stories come courtesy of the WNE.
Secretary of state candidate says incumbent illegally holds office
CHEYENNE (WNE) — The Libertarian candidate for Wyoming Secretary of State filed a petition earlier this month accusing the current secretary of holding the office illegally because he is a licensed lawyer.
Howard “Kit” Carson wrote in a petition that Secretary of State Ed Buchanan is violating the law by holding office as an “officer of the court.”
“He is asking the Supreme Court to obey five laws ‘on the books,’ both federal and in the Wyoming Constitution, prohibiting any officers of the court(s), meaning judges and lawyers, to be elected to any government offices,” a news release from the Libertarian Party of Wyoming states.
But Buchanan is far from the only lawyer holding public office in Wyoming.
A spokesman for his office, Will Dinneen, said the office finds it a bit “strange, as three of the last five secretaries of state prior to Secretary Buchanan were also attorneys.”
In addition to those people, Gov. Matt Mead was a longtime prosecutor, and several local state representatives, including Reps. Tara Nethercott, Jared Olsen and Bob Nicholas, are all local attorneys, as have been 25 of the 45 U.S. presidents.
According to a docket on the Supreme Court’s website, an attorney from the Wyoming Attorney General’s Office said they didn’t plan on filing a response.
The case has not been set for oral argument.
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UW eyes requiring more students to live on campus
LARAMIE (WNE) — University of Wyoming administrators are considering asking the Board of Trustees to revise the school’s housing policy to require all incoming freshmen living more than 30 miles outside of Laramie to live on campus.
Currently, students from Cheyenne, Rock River and Medicine Bow are all exempted from UW’s freshman dormitory requirement.
Freshmen who plan to live within a 60-mile driving distance of Laramie are not required to live on campus — assuming they live with parents, grandparents or legal guardians. Freshmen are also allowed to live off campus if they live at property purchased by parents, though the proposed plan by UW administrators would eliminate that exception.
UW trustee John McKinley said the full board of trustees still not reviewed the proposal, but he said some version of the idea is likely to be presented at the board’s November meeting.
Sean Blackburn, vice president for student affairs, acknowledged Thursday the proposal is “one that will cause a lot of concerns,” and said the policy revision would likely be implemented slowly to accommodate families who are already making alternative housing plans for Fall 2019.
“A lot more vetting needs to happen,” he said.
Currently, 200-300 students are exempted each year from the dorm policy. Blackburn said the new proposal aims to keep students from dropping out.
“From a retention and student success perspective, anything beyond 30 miles is really tough,” he said.
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Wyoming Medical Center regains key designation
CASPER (WNE) — Wyoming Medical Center has regained a federal Medicare designation worth millions of dollars in annual funding that the hospital lost in 2011 after competition from Mountain View Regional Hospital.
The designation of sole-community provider status is given to hospitals that are “the sole source of inpatient hospital services reasonably available in a geographic area to Medicare beneficiaries,” according to a spokesman for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Essentially, WMC earned $8 million a year in federal money for providing money-losing services.
It’s unclear if the hospital will earn more or less than that now that it’s regained the status. Dennis Delpizzo, the CMS spokesman, said a number of factors played a role, and WMC CEO Michele Chulick said in a statement that the hospital was “reviewing the last several months of payments, which have been delayed, to understand the full bottom-line impact.”
The hospital had been designated a sole-community provider from 1992 to 2011. That ended when Mountain View, a smaller specialty hospital founded by former WMC physicians, siphoned off a chunk of the larger hospital’s business. In the summer of 2011, WMC learned it was likely to lose the status because Mountain View had handled more than 8 percent of inpatient volume the previous year.
In addition to the loss of $8 million annually, WMC had to pay back the federal government $15.7 million.
WMC acquired Mountain View in mid-April for $37 million and had officially regained its sole-community provider status two weeks earlier, on April 1. With the acquisition, WMC became the largest hospital in the state, with 235 beds. It’s still smaller than Cheyenne Regional Medical Center in terms of employees — WMC has about 1,300, compared to CRMC’s 2,100.
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NWCC president to retire in July
SHERIDAN (WNE) — At a special meeting of the Northern Wyoming Community College Board of Trustees on Friday, NWCCD President Dr. Paul Young announced he will retire in July 2019. As one of Wyoming’s longest-serving higher education leaders, Young became president of NWCCD in June 2010 after serving five years as the vice president of institutional effectiveness at Gillette College.
“On behalf of the NWCCD Board of Trustees, we want to sincerely thank Dr. Young for his energy and focus over the past eight years,” Board Chair Norleen Healy said. “It is awe-inspiring to look back at all of the positive changes our institutions have accomplished under his leadership. We are sad to see him go. At the same time, we are grateful for the strong leadership team he has built while here. This will help us move forward without disruption in our strategic direction or momentum.”
During Young’s tenure as president, the entire NWCCD service area, which includes Johnson, Campbell and Sheridan counties, has seen immense positive change and growth. The district’s two supporting foundations have grown their assets from $24.8 million to $45 million, allowing them to award almost twice the number of student scholarships. Under his leadership, the annual number of certificate and degree awards grew 75 percent from 461 credentials awarded in 2011 to 806 in 2018.
