Idaho Senate sees chance, seizes day

The Idaho Senate this week had a tremendous opportunity and seized the day. This year it was the Republicans in the Legislature that drove an effort to ease the burden of property tax for all Idahoans.

I sponsored two bills at the start of the session related to property tax. The first would have fixed the circuit breaker and would have raised the homeowner’s exemption. That tax shift was to re-balance the property tax burden between homeowners and commercial, agricultural and industrial property owners. The second bill was my preferred strategy and would use the state’s budget surplus to pay a portion of our property tax. The result would be a true decrease of our overall tax burden.

It was this second strategy that ultimately got adopted into House Bill 292 (H292). Property tax relief was entirely driven by the Legislature and was not an initiative of the governor. H292 passed the Legislature in an overwhelming bi-partisan vote, and it was a surprise this week when the governor vetoed the bill. He claimed it was because of a flaw that affected transportation bonds, but a veto was not necessary since that could be fixed with a trailer bill.

After the veto, the Legislature played some chess, and the House and Senate Republicans almost unanimously overrode the governor’s veto for the first time since 2007. The Democrats opposed the override which would have left Idaho’s property taxpayers empty-handed.

Now that the Legislature’s Republicans delivered this victory in H292, how much will your property taxes go down? If you are an owner-occupied home who enjoys the homeowner’s exemption, then H292 will deliver you property tax relief in two ways. First, it will use sales taxes that you paid to the state to pay a portion of your property tax bill. In 2023 homeowners will see a direct reduction of their property tax bills of about $140 million. We should see an average 12. 2% reduction in our property taxes as a result.

Another benefit to homeowners and all other property taxpayers, H292 will deliver relief by providing funding for school bonds, levies and new school facilities bonds. In 2023, this will mean an additional relief in property taxes of $65 million. That relief will go up to $170 million in 2024 and $216 million in 2025.

Theoretically, H292 will reduce the amount of money that public schools need to ask from voters in the form of local property taxes. Currently, schools receive $600 million of their funding from these taxes. H292 will provide over a third of that funding relief by 2025.

Schools also greatly benefitted from the state’s budget bills this legislative session. Teacher pay was augmented by $140 million and will see average teacher pay in Idaho rise so that Idaho will be 10th in teacher pay out of the 50 states. Classified staff, like bus drivers, will see their pay increase by an average of 50%. The Legislature provided an additional $97 million to fund these salary increases.

My main concern about budgets this year was the continued dependence on federal debt spending. 43% of Idaho’s budgets are supported by federal funding. That is $5. 8 billion, and half of it is borrowed against future generations of Americans. Interest payments on the national debt this year will total almost $900 billion.

The conservative Republicans in the Legislature also delivered on key protections for children. H71 passed this week and will prohibit transgender surgeries on minors and transexual hormone therapies for minors.

For decades Idaho has had criminal penalties for those who distribute materials that are harmful to minors. The definitions of these obscene materials are precise and use local community standards and what is called the Miller test, developed at the Supreme Court over the last 50 years. An exception to these criminal laws has been the distribution to minors of obscene materials by libraries and schools. Conservative Republicans passed H314 in the Idaho House and Senate this week which will prohibit the libraries and schools themselves from placing such materials in the hands of minors and will require them to take reasonable steps to keep these materials from being accessed by minors.

H314 will not ban any books or materials from the libraries. It will also not hold libraries accountable for mistakes, nor will it ban the Bible or the sculpture of David by Michelangelo.

The Legislature reconvenes this Thursday in case we need to override any other vetoes by the governor, and then we will adjourn for the year.

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Idaho Sen. Scott Herndon represents Bonner and Boundary counties in District 1. He can be reached at sherndon@senate.idaho.gov.