Since 1986, Wyoming's workers' compensation program has gone from hemorrhaging $700,000 monthly, with millions in unfunded liability, to a nearly $1 billion cash reserve.

What that $925 million reserve represents depends on your point of view. Employers might say the surplus is evidence they're paying too much into the program. But worker advocates argue that employer premiums are fair, and the surplus is built on withheld benefits due to injured workers.

But it's Wyoming lawmakers who must now decide whether premiums and payouts are in balance, and how to maintain a balance in the years ahead.

"I want more detailed analysis," said Rep. Tom Lubnau, R-Gillette. "We need to do an examination of the benefit structure and premium structure, and make sure if there are benefit increases that there's money there to pay those benefits later on."

A legislative attempt to increase premium rebates to employers failed recently just as worker advocates persuaded legislators to launch a study of whether the program is paying enough to workers who get hurt on the job.

Lubnau serves on the Joint Interim Labor, Health and Social Services Committee, which will examine workers' comp this year. As with any surplus in Wyoming's economy, Lubnau said legislators are sure to look at the workers' comp finances against the backdrop of the state's boom-and-bust history.

"I'm always hesitant to take short-term prosperity trends and extend those trends out into the future without detailed analysis," Lubnau said.

A recent assessment of workers' comp's finances by Pacific Actuarial Consulting suggested that about $642 million is required to cover benefits and liabilities based on historic and current income and payouts. It also suggested a more conservative view may call for $848.7 million, which would cover a major catastrophic scenario.

As of Jan. 31, workers' comp's cash balance was $925,296,141, according to outgoing director Gary Child.

So whether the surplus is in the neighborhood of $77 million or $283 million, advocates from both the employee and employer viewpoints say they want a more detailed analysis of the finances.

"The actuary makes clear these numbers are speculative. I don't know what their assumptions are," said Cheyenne attorney George Santini of Ross, Ross & Santini.

Santini, who is an advocate of increasing workers' comp benefits to employees, said he suspects both figures are inflated. He noted that the program paid out about $122 million in claims in fiscal year 2007. If that rate were to hold - and few expect it to - then workers' comp would have enough to cover benefits and liabilities for the next five years under the low estimate, seven years under the high estimate, even if all premiums suddenly ceased today.

Whatever the fund's vitality, lawmakers appear certain that they don't want to make changes to the program that would threaten its self-supportive status.

Sen. Charles Scott, R-Casper, said he remembers when Gov. Ed Herschler called a special session in the 1980s to fix the bankrupt workers' comp fund. He said adjustments that were made during the bust era helped turn the fund toward balance, but it took several years.

"The boom is going on now, and a lot more businesses are paying in," said Scott, who co-chairs the Joint Interim Labor, Health and Social Services Committee.

As lawmakers weigh increased benefits for injured workers this year, they're also aware of an aging work force in Wyoming, and one that is mostly blue-collar.

"We've got to look at the demographics of our workers, and what types of losses we anticipate in the future," Lubnau said.

Reporter Dustin Bleizeffer can be reached at (307) 577-6069 or dustin.bleizeffer@trib.com.