JACKSON, Wyo. — The Teton County/Jackson Joint Housing Department recently released the 2023 Housing Supply Plan draft, and Director April Norton presented the plan to town and county electeds during a joint information meeting on April 10.
The annual plan has been compiled since 2016, following the creation of the Joint Affordable Housing Department. The plan is meant to serve as a five-year look ahead at the Housing Supply Program.
One metric included in the plan looks at commuter stats related to core service workers. Core services include the Teton County Sheriff’s Office, Town of Jackson Police Department (JPD), Lower Valley Energy, Town of Jackson plow drivers, St. John’s Health (SJH), Teton County School District #1 (TCSD #1) and Jackson Hole Fire/EMS.
According to the plan, Teton County Sheriff’s Office and Lower Valley Energy have the greatest percentage of commuting employees with 58% and 66%, respectively.
Of the 73 Sheriff’s office staff, 42 employees commute and six employees live in local employer-provided housing. Lower Valley Energy employs 32 office staff members; 21 people commute and zero employees live in employee housing. For these two core services, the number of employees that commute has fluctuated only a few percentage points since 2021 when the Housing Department began including the metric.
Jackson Police Department currently has 49 employees, with 37% of them commuting. Nine JPD employees live in local employer-provided housing, which has doubled since 2021.
TCSD #1 employs 571 staff members with 162 commuting or 28% of the staff. This statistic has increased since 2021 when only 13% of the staff commuted. In 2022, 20-25% of the staff commuted. Staff living in employer-provided housing has hovered around three to four percent.
SJH employs the greatest number of core service staff with 890 staff members in 2023. Commuters make up 34% of the staff, accounting for nearly 300 employees. Commuting staff at SJH has been somewhat consistent since 2021, with 32% of staff commuting that year, and 36% commuting in 2022.
This year, the Town of Jackson employed nine plow drivers. Five of those drivers live in local employer-provided housing and two drivers commute, a flip from 2021 when only two drivers lived in employer-provided housing and five commuted.
Jackson Hole Fire/EMS employs 38 staff members and the number of commuting employees has been on the rise since 2021 from five to eight to now 11.
This winter, storm cycle after storm cycle hammered the region, closing roads including major commuter corridors such as Teton Pass and US191/189.
In February, Buckrail asked the community how a nearly 12-hour closure of Teton Pass affected them, and a majority of people responded by saying they were forced to miss a day of work. One person noted, “This [closure] does apply a lot of pressure to critical services like fire, police and hospital employees. Sometimes staff needs to be on-site for more critical events and if they can not be then someone that lives in Jackson has to.”
The 2023 plan did not include commuter costs but according to the 2022 plan, commuters from Teton County, Idaho, spend an estimated $525 per month commuting, and commuter from Northern Lincoln County, Wyoming, spend an estimated $855. Gas prices climbed to nearly $5 for regular unleaded and $6 per gallon for diesel last summer; it’s safe to assume the commuting costs were higher.
