When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Robin Lockman feared the worst for her town of Cheyenne, Wyoming. As the city’s treasurer, she estimated that it might lose up to 25% of its budget as tax revenues stalled and the prices of oil, gas and coal tanked, eliminating money the city typically receives from the state as royalties from the extractive energy industry.
So the city did the hard work of laying off 18 employees and cutting funds for travel and training. And then a surprising thing happened: The huge deficit never arrived. In fact, over the summer, the city brought in more tax revenue than the year before.