Wyoming Governor Matt Mead’s budget recommendations for the upcoming 2017-18 biennium include a nearly $4.8 million reduction in funding for the state’s Court Supervised Treatment programs such as Drug Court and DUI Court.

The programs are administered by the Department of Health’s Behavioral Health division.  The suggested cuts amount to about 56 percent of the budget for those programs.  DOH was counting on receiving that money as part of the state’s tobacco settlement funds.

Wyoming and 45 other states take in millions of dollars each year as the result of a settlement reached back in the late 1990s with the country’s five largest tobacco companies.  But that revenue has been slowly declining over the past few years.