Sheridan County ballot, Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026
Sheridan County's two tax questions, explained
A plain-English, nonpartisan guide to the 2% lodging tax and the 1% sales tax known as the "fifth penny": what each one does, the strongest case on each side, and what happens if it fails.
Neither one is a new tax. You're paying both today. Voting For keeps everything the same; voting Against ends that tax.
Sheridan County
2% County-Wide Lodging Tax
For
Against
Continuation of 1% Sales and Use Tax
Known locally as the "fifth penny"
For
Against
What you're voting on
Neither of these is a new tax. Both are already being collected, and both questions only ask whether to keep them. Voting For keeps everything exactly as it is today: same rates, no new charges. Voting Against ends that tax, so you'd pay less.
- For keeps it; Against ends it. Each tax runs four more years if it passes, then comes back to the ballot in 2030.
- If one fails, it stops in mid-2027. State law says a tax voters defeat can't be collected after June 30 of the following year.
- They're separate votes. You can vote For one and Against the other, and neither depends on Prop 1.
- Not the other 1%. Sheridan County also has a 1% capital facilities tax for water, road and other projects. Voters renewed it in 2024, and it isn't on this ballot.
The two taxes side by side
| 2% lodging tax | 1% sales tax ("fifth penny") | |
|---|---|---|
| Is it new? | No. Already collected; For keeps it the same | No. Already collected; For keeps it the same |
| What's taxed | Stays at hotels, motels, campgrounds, RV parks, guest ranches, B&Bs and vacation rentals | Most retail purchases, admissions and services; not most groceries, rent, real estate or gasoline |
| Who pays | Mostly overnight visitors; residents only when they rent a room here | Everyone who shops here, visitors included |
| Rate today, and if it fails | Room tax is 7%; it would drop to 5% | Sales tax is 6%; it would drop to 5% |
| Where the money goes | Sheridan County Travel & Tourism; at least 90% must go to promoting travel and tourism | Split by population among the county and the towns of Sheridan, Dayton, Ranchester and Clearmont, for general use |
| Roughly how much | The county reported about $910,000 in lodging tax for July 2023–June 2024 (the report didn't say whether that counts both halves of the 4% local share) | About $27 million over 2019–2022, or roughly $7 million a year |
| Track record | Approved every time since 1992; 74% For in 2022 | In effect since 1989; renewed every time, most recently in 2022 |
The big difference is where the money goes. Lodging tax money is fenced off for tourism promotion. Sales tax money is general revenue that local governments can spend on almost anything.
Questions to judge them by
For each row, pick the column you agree with more. One row that matters a lot to you can outweigh the others.
| The question | Points FOR if you believe… | Points AGAINST if you believe… |
|---|---|---|
| 2% lodging tax | ||
| 1. Should government market tourism? | Tourism marketing pays for itself in visitor spending and taxes, and visitors foot the bill | Businesses that profit from visitors should pay for their own marketing |
| 2. Do you want more visitors? | More visitors mean more jobs, busier shops and more tax money from outsiders | Sheridan has enough tourists already, or you'd rather not see more crowds and vacation rentals |
| 1% sales tax ("fifth penny") | ||
| 3. 6% or 5%? | The roads, public safety and other services it pays for are worth a penny on the dollar | You'd rather keep that penny and have local governments make do with less |
| 4. How much do you trust local spending? | Elected councils and the commission spend it well, and a vote every four years is check enough | "General revenue" with no named projects is too open-ended |
The 2% lodging tax
The exact ballot question
"Shall the Board of County Commissioners for Sheridan County, Wyoming continue to impose a county-wide 2% lodging tax upon the sales price paid for lodging services for the primary purpose of generating revenue for local travel and tourism promotion as set forth in Wyoming Statute § 39-15-204(a)(ii)?"
- Who pays it: guests at hotels, motels, campgrounds, RV parks, guest ranches, B&Bs and vacation rentals such as Airbnb and Vrbo. On a $150 room, this 2% is $3 a night.
- Why you've heard "4%": Travel & Tourism's share is 4% of each room bill. The state permanently sends it 2% from the statewide lodging tax, and this 2% is the half voters decide every four years. Guests pay 7% in all: the 5% statewide tax plus this 2%.
- Who spends it: Sheridan County Travel & Tourism, run by a nine-member board of people from the local tourism industry, named by the county and the four towns. The board approves the budget, and state law generally requires at least 90% to go to promoting travel and tourism.
- What it pays for: advertising campaigns, the visitor centers in Sheridan and at Burgess Junction, and support for events such as the WYO Rodeo, the Dead Swede and the Big Horn Soccer Cup.
- History: the City of Sheridan has had a lodging tax since voters approved it in 1992; the countywide version began after a 2018 vote. The local rate has been 4% since 2005.
Lodging tax: the case for (as supporters make it)
We found no organized campaign for this tax. These arguments come mainly from Travel & Tourism's pitch to commissioners and the state's travel study.
- Visitors pay it, not residents. It falls on overnight guests: more than 460,000 of them in 2025, over 80% from out of state.
- Tourism is a major local industry. The state's annual travel study puts travel spending in Sheridan County at about $165.8 million in 2025, supporting about 1,100 jobs.
- Visitors lighten residents' tax load. The same study credits travel with $3.7 million in local taxes and $5.4 million in state taxes here in 2025. Travel & Tourism's director has said the average household would pay $654 more a year without tourism.
- Residents benefit too. The money runs the Sheridan visitor center, which sees about 100,000 people a year, puts more than $100,000 a year into local events and invests more than $90,000 a year in visitor and community amenity projects.
- The money is fenced off. State law requires nearly all of it to go to tourism promotion, and a board named by the county and towns approves every budget.
- Sheridan is in line with its peers. Natrona, Laramie, Park and Johnson counties also charge 7% in all, and Sheridan voters have approved this tax every time since 1992.
Lodging tax: the case against (as critics make it)
We found no organized campaign against this tax. These are the standard arguments against lodging taxes, applied to Sheridan's.
- Government shouldn't advertise for one industry. Hotels, guest ranches and other tourism businesses gain most from the marketing; critics say they could pay for it themselves.
- No one has shown the ads bring the visitors. The state's study measures what visitors spend, not whether marketing brought them. Claims of a return come from Travel & Tourism itself; for example, it credits a $54,800 digital campaign in 2025 with $3.6 million in impact. Many visitors might come anyway, for the Bighorns or on the way to Yellowstone.
- The people who spend it benefit from it. The nine board members are drawn from the local tourism industry, including a hotel, guest ranches and a brewery; critics see a built-in conflict of interest.
- It makes stays here pricier. 7% is the most Wyoming allows. When Campbell County voters rejected their 2% in 2024, the rate there fell to 5%.
- Not everyone wants more tourism. The point of the marketing is to bring more visitors; some residents would rather have fewer crowds and fewer homes used as vacation rentals.
The 1% sales tax: the "fifth penny"
This is the fifth penny. If you've heard people talk about the "fifth penny," the "optional one-cent tax" or "GPET" (general purpose excise tax), this is that tax. On the ballot it's called "Continuation of 1% Sales and Use Tax." It is not the separate 1% capital facilities tax.
The exact ballot question
"Shall the Board of County Commissioners for Sheridan County, Wyoming continue to impose an excise tax of 1% upon retail sales of tangible personal property, admissions and services made within Sheridan County, for the purpose of general revenue as set forth in Wyoming Statute § 39-15-203(a)(i)?"
Why "fifth" penny when sales tax here is 6%?
Count the pennies on each dollar you spend. The state takes the first four. This tax is the fifth. The separate capital facilities tax, often called the sixth penny, makes six. The name comes from that count, not from the total rate.
- Pennies 1–4: the state sales tax, on every purchase in Wyoming
- Penny 5: the fifth penny, on this ballot
- Penny 6: the capital facilities tax, renewed in 2024 and not on this ballot
- What it covers: most retail purchases, admissions and services in the county, but not most groceries, rent, real estate or gasoline. "Use tax" is the same 1% on taxable things bought elsewhere for use here.
- Where it fits: sales tax here is 6 cents on the dollar, as shown above. If this one fails, it drops to 5 cents.
- Who gets it: the county and the towns of Sheridan, Dayton, Ranchester and Clearmont split it by population; the county's share covers unincorporated places such as Story and Big Horn. From 2019 to 2022 it brought in about $27 million: $16 million for the City of Sheridan, $9.3 million for the county, $1 million for Dayton, $847,000 for Ranchester and $144,000 for Clearmont.
- What it pays for: the county lists roads, public safety, parks and pathways, senior services, public health, arts, housing and shelter, buildings, and matching money for grants. Part goes to local nonprofits: the City of Sheridan's grants to them from it run about $500,000 a year.
- How it got on the ballot: county commissioners voted 3–2 in June to put it before voters, after the four towns passed resolutions supporting a vote.
Fifth penny: the case for (as supporters make it)
We found no organized campaign for this tax either, and local governments have to stay neutral. These are the standard arguments for renewal, drawn from official descriptions of the tax.
- It isn't a tax increase. Voting For keeps the 6% you pay today.
- It pays for everyday local services. Roads, public safety, parks, senior services and public health in every town and across the county: about $27 million over the last four-year term.
- Local budgets count on it. It brought the City of Sheridan about $3.4 million in fiscal 2024, roughly a tenth of its governmental revenue, and the city made this year's nonprofit grants contingent on renewal.
- Visitors pay part of it. The county says out-of-county visitors pay more than 12%, and most groceries, rent and gasoline aren't taxed.
- The money stays local and flexible. Locally elected boards decide how to spend it, and it can match state and federal grants.
- Voters keep a check. State law has allowed counties to ask voters to make this tax permanent since 2021; commissioners didn't, so it returns to the ballot in 2030.
Fifth penny: the case against (as critics make it)
We found no organized campaign against this tax. These are the standard arguments, plus points residents have raised in public.
- A No vote is a tax cut. Critics put it simply: do you want to pay 6% or 5%? Every taxable purchase would cost a penny less per dollar.
- Sales taxes hit lower-income families hardest. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a left-leaning research group, ranks Wyoming's tax system the 11th most regressive in the country: sales and excise taxes take about 6.1% of income from the lowest-earning fifth of households, compared with 0.9% from the top 1%.
- "General revenue" is a blank check. The capital facilities tax names its projects and stops when its dollar target is reached; this ballot names nothing. Before the 2014 and 2018 votes, the county's one-cent website posted projected allocations; we found none posted there for 2027–2030.
- Some of it goes to private nonprofits. Councils hand part of the money to charities of their choosing; critics say people should decide for themselves which charities to support.
- Governments have room to adjust. Sheridan County alone holds about $16 million in general fund reserves; critics say local governments can set priorities without the extra penny.
How solid is each claim?
Most claims on both sides are facts that check out or values questions no data can settle. Few are predictions, so unlike our Prop 1 guide, this one skips the odds.
- Verified: checked against official records, state law or the ballot text
- Depends: true, but depends on framing, or comes only from a source with a stake
- Values call: no data can settle it
| Claim and basis | Rating |
|---|---|
| Lodging tax: the case for | |
| 1. Visitors pay it, not residentsTrue by design; residents pay only when they rent a room in the county | Verified |
| 2. Tourism is a major local industryState-commissioned study by Dean Runyan Associates for the Wyoming Office of Tourism | Verified |
| 3. Visitors lighten residents' tax loadTax figures are from the state study; the $654-per-household figure is the director's own estimate | Depends |
| 4. Residents benefit tooVisitor centers and event support are documented; how much residents gain is a judgment | Depends |
| 5. The money is fenced offState law: at least 90% to travel and tourism promotion | Verified |
| 6. In line with its peersNatrona, Laramie, Park and Johnson also charge 7%; Campbell dropped to 5% | Verified |
| Lodging tax: the case against | |
| 1. Government shouldn't advertise for one industryA question of what government should do | Values call |
| 2. No one has shown the ads bring the visitorsTrue that no independent study measures it; that doesn't mean the ads don't work | Depends |
| 3. The people who spend it benefit from itBoard makeup verified; whether that's a conflict or useful expertise is a values call | Depends |
| 4. It makes stays pricier7% is the state maximum; $3 a night on a $150 room | Verified |
| 5. Not everyone wants more tourismA question of what kind of place you want | Values call |
| Fifth penny: the case for | |
| 1. It isn't a tax increaseBallot text asks whether to "continue" the tax | Verified |
| 2. It pays for everyday local servicesCounty list of uses; $27 million in 2019–2022 allocations | Verified |
| 3. Local budgets count on itCity audit and council memo; the county budgeted $2.86 million from it for 2025–26 | Verified |
| 4. Visitors pay part of itLikely true, but the county's own website gives two different shares, 12% and 71% | Depends |
| 5. The money stays local and flexibleAccurate; whether flexibility is good is a values call | Values call |
| 6. Voters keep a checkState law and ballot text: four-year term, no permanent option on this ballot | Verified |
| Fifth penny: the case against | |
| 1. A No vote is a tax cutSales tax would fall from 6% to 5% | Verified |
| 2. Sales taxes hit lower-income families hardestITEP data; exempting groceries softens it, and ITEP finds property tax regressive too, so shifting to it wouldn't fix that | Verified |
| 3. "General revenue" is a blank checkNo projects on the ballot or posted plan found; spending still goes through public budget meetings | Depends |
| 4. Some goes to private nonprofitsTrue (about $500,000 a year from the city); whether that's right is a values call | Verified |
| 5. Governments have room to adjustReserves are real but one-time money; the tax brings in roughly $7 million every year | Depends |
More green on one side doesn't mean that side is right. The "for" cases rest on solid numbers about what the taxes raise and what tourism is worth, but not on proof of what the spending achieves. The "against" cases rest more on values: what government should do, and how much you trust it to spend well.
Disagree with a rating? Tell us whyWho's for them and who's against them
Neither tax has an organized campaign on either side that we could find. Support comes mainly from the agency and governments that receive the money. Criticism comes from individual residents, and two county commissioners voted against sending the sales tax to voters.
| Who | Lodging tax | Fifth penny |
|---|---|---|
| Sheridan County Travel & Tourism | For Asked commissioners to put it on the ballot, citing tourism's economic impact | No position found |
| City of Sheridan and the towns of Dayton, Ranchester and Clearmont | Passed resolutions asking for the vote | Passed resolutions asking for the vote; the city made this year's nonprofit grants contingent on renewal |
| Sheridan County Commission | Voted unanimously to put it on the ballot, after removing wording that could read as an endorsement | Voted 3–2 to put it on the ballot; Commissioners Mike Arzy and Holly Jennings voted no. Their reasons weren't reported in detail; the debate was over resolution wording some said signaled the board's support |
| Residents in public comment | None found | One spoke in favor at a June 1 county meeting; at least one resident has argued publicly for dropping to 5% |
| Organized campaigns | None found | None found |
How these votes have gone
Sheridan County voters have approved both taxes every time. Around the region, most similar taxes pass, with one recent exception.
- Lodging tax in Sheridan: approved every time since 1992. For share: 78% in 2012, 81% in 2016, 65% in 2018 (when it went countywide) and 74% in 2022, or 8,903 to 3,128.
- Fifth penny in Sheridan: renewed every time since it began in 1989, most recently in 2022.
- The other 1% in Sheridan: voters renewed the capital facilities tax in 2024 by about 58% to 42% in unofficial results, its narrowest margin since at least 2003.
- Campbell County: voters rejected their 2% lodging tax in 2024, about 53% to 47%, the first defeat there since 2004. The rate there fell to 5%.
- Elsewhere in 2024: Park, Weston and Sublette counties renewed their 2% lodging taxes, and Johnson County voters added one.
- Washakie County, 2022: voters renewed both taxes, the 1% sales tax with about 70% and the 2% lodging tax with 75%.
- Park County, 2020: voters rejected a new 1% general sales tax, 61% to 39%, after county officials warned of job and service cuts without it. That was a new tax, not a renewal.
If they fail
Each tax would stop after June 30, 2027, and couldn't go back to voters for at least 11 months.
If the lodging tax fails
- Room tax drops from 7% to 5%. That's $3 a night less on a $150 room.
- Travel & Tourism shrinks rather than closes. It would keep the state's permanent 2% share, roughly half of its lodging money.
- Campbell County shows it can happen. Its voters ended their 2% in 2024.
If the fifth penny fails
- Sales tax drops from 6% to 5%. On $100 of taxable purchases, you'd pay $1 less.
- Local governments lose roughly $7 million a year, based on 2019–2022, including about a tenth of the City of Sheridan's governmental revenue.
- They'd have to cut or find money elsewhere. Property tax is the main other local option, and the county already levies 12 mills, the most state law allows for a county's general fund.
- Nonprofit grants are at risk. The City of Sheridan made this year's grants to nonprofits contingent on renewal.
If Prop 1 also passes, the same local governments would lose property tax at the same time. See what our Prop 1 guide says about local budgets.