Mayor John Wetzel thinks of all of the money the city has lost by not being able to more properly invest the $2 million endowment approved as part of the 1 cent special option sales tax in 2006 and set aside for the maintenance of the city pool installed in 2010.

He’s one of the biggest proponents of Amendment A, which would allow cities and county governments the ability to invest in equities as the state government already does and which, Wetzel said, have seen yearly returns in the double digits some years. Even in low years, he said, the returns would have been well above the CDs and similar state funds the city is currently allowed to invest in, which even now with high interest rates is only somewhat above 1%.

“It’s been an incredible frustration of mine,” he said. “If we had been with the whole time, we would have killed it. (The state has) a highly well managed investment fund.”

The amendment is being supported by the Wyoming County Commissioners Association and the Wyoming Association of Municipalities. 

The amendment has its detractors too. While Park County GOP Chairman Martin Kimmett said the local party hadn’t had discussions on the amendments on the ballot, he had seen mailers urging people to vote against the amendment as being too risky with taxpayer money and outside the duty of cities and counties. 

“Personally I’m against both of them, it just makes more government,” he said. “County government is set up for the people, not as a banking system. The county doesn’t need to get their fingers in that. If something isn’t broke, don’t fix it.”

The text of Amendment A as presented on the ballot is as follows: The Wyoming Constitution allows the state to invest state funds in equities such as the stock of corporations, but does not allow the funds of counties, cities, and other political subdivisions to be invested in equities. The adoption of this amendment would allow the funds of counties, cities, and other political subdivisions to be invested in equities to the extent and in the manner the legislature may allow by law. Any law authorizing the investment of specified political subdivision funds in equities would require a two-thirds vote of both houses of the Legislature.

Adoption of constitutional amendments requires approval by a majority of all voters casting ballots at the election.

Wetzel said the state Constitution doesn’t specifically bar municipalities from investing, it’s just not clear, which kept a 2017 law to accomplish the same goal from going into effect after a review from the then attorney general. Wetzel said a constitutional amendment would clear the air. 

“We’re not asking for this amendment to go willy nilly investing in the stock market,” Wetzel said. “What it would allow us to do is merge our money with the highly successful state investment pool. This is not money from your power bill, there’s money we have that we are going to use anytime soon that we can invest.

“We could put more endowments together like (the pool fund), continue to grow these endowments and use that to better run facilities, provide better facilities and a better quality of living for citizens.”

The amendment will be on the ballot Nov. 8.