The Wyoming Penny That Could Pay for Targhee's Idaho Costs

DRIGGS — The nearest-term way to make Grand Targhee's Wyoming-side growth pay for the costs it pushes onto Idaho is a single Wyoming penny of sales tax, and Idaho controls none of it. Commissioners from both Teton counties kept returning to that penny at a July 23 joint workshop. A three-member Wyoming board could switch it on by a vote of its own, with no public election and no act of either legislature.

That Wyoming penny belongs to the Grand Targhee Resort District, a Wyoming government entity that already levies two of the three sales-tax pennies it is permitted. Getting at it would take two steps: persuading the district's board to add the third, and contracting the proceeds back across the state line.

Neither commission voted on it. The July 23 workshop ran seven hours, and its notice memo, signed by Teton County, Idaho Chairman Brad Wolfe, said commissioners "will not make policy decisions at this meeting but may direct their staff to work on initiatives."

Idaho's county budget cap leaves the county unable to raise the revenue a growing population demands, and Wyoming law limits what can move from a Wyoming taxing entity into an Idaho budget.

How the penny works

Keith Gingery, chief deputy attorney for Teton County, Wyoming, called resort districts "a big tool that you potentially could utilize." A resort district is a government entity, not a company.

Gingery used Teton Village as the illustration: the parking lots, the red buses, and most of the infrastructure at the base of Jackson Hole Mountain Resort are owned by the resort district, not by the ski company. Grand Targhee has the same structure at a smaller scale. Its district, which Gingery said was formed in 2015, funds three things from its two-penny sales tax: snow removal in its parking lots, its wastewater treatment plant, and its summer trail and bike maintenance. It pays for that work by contracting with Grand Targhee Resort LLC, the ski operator, for the service.

Gingery told the room that the Grand Targhee district collects about $350,000 a year on its two pennies, compared with about $4.6 million a year for the Teton Village district on its two. Both districts are entitled to a third penny; neither has levied it. "As their master plan plays out," Gingery said of Grand Targhee, "you're going to see that amount of money collect." Both figures come from Gingery's remarks at the workshop and have not been checked against the district's annual budgets.

Adding the third penny takes no public vote, only a vote of the district's board, which Gingery described as "a 3-member board that is somewhat of a self-appointing board amongst themselves." He named the three members as Jordy Gillette, Brian Pope and Larry Johnson, as heard at the workshop and not independently confirmed. Asked how the board is chosen, Gingery answered: "That board appoints itself."

The district cannot hand cash from the Wyoming penny across the state line; Wyoming law does not allow it. "Not impacts, talk about benefits," Gingery said. Wyoming's taxation code does not recognize the impacts a resort throws onto a neighboring community; it recognizes a demonstrable benefit to residents of Alta, the Wyoming town at the base of the pass. Where Idaho can show that benefit, the two counties can trade what Gingery called consideration, or "value for value." "What I can't make justification for," he said, "is just providing taxes, just we're going to give you a percentage of taxes."

The two counties already move money the lawful way: for senior services in Alta, a solid-waste access fee, and the fire and emergency coverage they handle together. Gingery said Teton County, Idaho should start talking to the district: "You can always work contractually out with the Grand Targhee Resort District, and that may be a resort district that you may want to start engaging with and talking to them about services that could be provided back and forth."

The unused third penny

During the afternoon synthesis, Rose Robertson, clerk of the Teton County, Wyoming commission, said the district's two pennies are already earmarked, "but they still have another penny that they could impose now. And it's just those 3 people on the board that choose to add that extra penny. So that's very low-hanging fruit in my opinion. You should get some of that money now." The catch, Robertson added, echoing Gingery, is that the penny has to be tied to a specific project: "You would have to say, here's the project annually, what we want to collect that money for." Idaho's legislature, which has repeatedly declined to give counties new revenue authority, has no say over the Wyoming penny.

As the resort expands and leans harder on shuttles because there is only so much parking on the mountain, said Jay Pence, district ranger for the Teton Basin Ranger District, the cost of that growth should fall on the resort, and "adding some additional taxation onto the resort district seems like a pretty obvious way to cover that."

"So it's basically a taxing district that the money increases the value of a private entity," said Teton County, Idaho, Clerk Kim Keeley as Gingery finished. Gingery did not dispute it. "Potentially," he said. "Yeah."

A joint approach to the resort district

"It doesn't hurt for us to probably put a unified effort into talking to the resort district," said Mark Newcomb, chair of the Teton County, Wyoming commission, cautioning against negotiating specifics "without Mr. Gillette here." Teton County, Wyoming, Commissioner Len Carlman also raised the idea of increasing the district's levy from two pennies to three for an attributable use. Neither commission has asked the board.

Sources

• Teton Valley Workshop agenda, July 23, 2026