Lawmakers earn B

Idahoans weren’t impressed by the performance of their Legislature, judging by two online newspaper polls in opposite ends of the state.

Seventy-one percent of the respondents to a Coeur d’Alene Press poll and 61.5 percent of those involved in an Idaho Statesman poll gave lawmakers D’s and F’s for their 2006 session, respectively. Only 10.3 percent of the Press poll and 11.7 percent of the Statesman poll graded the session with A’s and B’s. Property taxes and reconstructed roadways, of course, were important in both of the rapidly growing areas covered by the newspapers.

And legislators dilly-dallied until the last day with important legislation dealing with both of those crucial issues.

However, in the end, state lawmakers did the right thing in both areas, although they couldn’t resist the temptation to play hardball with bills that called for increasing the homeowner’s exemption for the first time in 24 years and that approved $200 million in road construction. They would have deserved failing grades if they’d rejected either measure. Instead, they finished the work. As a result, they deserve a letter grade of B.

Many North Idahoans were disappointed when the Idaho Senate narrowly defeated a House measure that would have shifted $250 million in costs for school maintenance and operations from property taxes to the state sales tax. But they didn’t seem to mind that the Legislature was flirting with a radical overhaul of the balanced state tax system in the pell-mell rush that occurs in the closing days of a session. That’s not the way to conduct important business. In fact, lawmakers should have made property tax reform a priority issue from the moment they convened this year. The vote to increase the homeowner exemption from $50,000 to $75,000, and tie increases to the housing price index, was a good halfway measure to hold off a property tax rebellion for a while longer.

Equally important, lawmakers authorized the use of $200 million worth of GARVEE (Grant Anticipation Revenue Vehicle) bonds to begin massive reconstruction projects designed to increase safety in stretches of dangerous U.S. Highway 95, north of Worley and between Garwood and Sagle, and relieve congestion on Interstate 84 in the Boise area, among other projects. Some legislators balked at borrowing against future federal highway funding to condense 20 years worth of projects into a decade. In a game of brinkmanship, the bill for the construction program was held hostage in the House as a bargaining chip for property tax relief.

Legislators also deserved credit for providing decent funding to upgrade state parks, limiting exemptions for closing committee meetings, toughening laws against sex offenders, appropriating $4 million to fight the infestation of Eurasian milfoil in the state’s waterways, and beginning the process to adjudicate water rights in North Idaho. On the negative side, they failed to significantly address a court-ordered fix to school building and safety problems, to address the need for a statewide community college system, and to resist the temptation to add another $5.3 million worth of exemptions to the sales tax.

The pluses, however, outweighed the minuses.