The Wyoming Game and Fish Commission voted unanimously to accept the department produced 2026 budget proposal, trimming $5.46 million from this year’s budget.

The bulk of the savings come from rescheduling vehicle retirement mileage, halting the construction of two employee housing projects and a 44.5% reduction in one-time project requests. However, when you look at the 5% budget reduction, it’s actually more than a 13.5% reduction of programs the commission can touch without setting off an exodus of top talent from the department.

“Salaries cannot be reduced if we want quality employees and the WGFD follows the same pay classification tables as the rest of Wyoming State Government,” said department Chief Financial Officer Meredith Wood. “The only way we could have a reduction in that category is if the number of positions within the department were reduced.”

Salaries account for 50.7% of the proposed budget. The department has had trouble in the past recruiting new employees and retaining experienced employees due to competition with law enforcement, federal agencies and other states for the top candidates. In response they have worked to increase wages in past years.

In 2023, a steep drop in the number of documented wildlife, fishing and watercraft violations from previous years looked, at first glance, as if folks simply decided to start obeying regulations. Yet, an official set the record straight, saying, “This should not be interpreted as an increase in compliance with state laws and regulations. Rather, it should serve as a stark reminder of our ongoing recruitment and retention challenges.”

Other 2026 mandatory expenses include taxes ($1.15 million), utilities ($3.13 million), wildlife damage claims ($2 million) and the state cost allocation ($2.2 million). Of the $100,117,860 budget, $59.9 million is already allocated to mandatory expenses. The state cost allocation is a mechanism to recover central service costs from federal and other funds and allocate them to benefiting state agencies. This plan ensures that agencies using nongeneral state funds contribute to the overall state government’s operational costs.

“Essentially, over half of the commission’s budget is basically nondiscretionary,” Wood said. “It is what it is. If we operate at the level we’re operating as far as personnel goes, the remaining 40% is what has to cover everything else.”

The department saved more than $2 million by reviewing the vehicle replacement policy and modifying several of the minimum mileage requirements for the fleet, making adjustments to be able to delay the replacement of a significant portion of higher mileage vehicles. The savings from housing projects reflect a decision to halt future construction plans until an evaluation of the entire program can be undertaken.

“We’re doing a reset year in [fiscal year] 2026 to evaluate 100% of our properties and figure out a prioritization schedule for those,” Wood said.

Commissioners were well acquainted with the proposed budget prior to their vote of approval. There were no changes from the preliminary approval in March.

“That has not happened in a long, long time,” Wood told the commission last week at their Casper meeting.

Considering the rate of inflation since the Game and Fish budget stopped receiving revenue from the state general fund in 2016, cuts to keep the budget relatively flat over the past decade have been commonplace. Between 2016 and 2025, the average annual inflation rate in the U.S., as measured by the Consumer Price Index, was approximately 3.30%. This means that prices generally increased by about 33.94% over the nine-year period.