“From 30,000 feet, what it tells you is that Wyoming cannot rely on traditional sources of income for our revenue streams,” Bebout said. “Minerals futures are not as good as it could be and interest income is volatile as well and will only continue. There really is a shift going on that I’ve never seen before in all the years I’ve been doing this. I think it’s more of a shift than we’ve ever had.”

While the impacts of these revenue projections won’t be fully understood until the budget is drafted, Richards hinted some pains could immediately be felt in areas like the state’s capital construction and general operations budgets: a far cry from a $60 million surplus projected at the end of session back in March. This could mean the granting of fewer exception requests in the budget — meaning less funding for capital construction — or money to address hundreds of millions of dollars in agency funding requests.

“I’m anticipating that Joint Appropriations and the governor are going to have to make some more challenging decisions,” Richards said.

However, there is some flexibility in the budget to move some of those funds around on a one-time basis, should the governor choose to do so. However, balancing the budget that way presents some risks.