Eye on Boise: Sims’ protest votes target state worker benefit

BOISE – A Coeur d’Alene lawmaker says she’s casting protest votes against a proposal to have Idaho cover a planned state employee health insurance increase next year.

Rep. Kathy Sims, R-Coeur d’Alene, sent out a letter to the editor last week to North Idaho newspapers explaining why she’ll vote against many appropriation bills, which are the agency-by-agency pieces of Idaho’s state budget that the Legislature must set each year. She said her “no” votes are because all agency appropriation bills for next year – none of which have yet been written or introduced – include the governor’s proposal to have the state cover a $650-per-employee increase in medical insurance costs next year; she noted a larger increase was covered last year.

“Private citizens/business are asked again and again to pick up the bill for state employees and pay their own increased expenses as well,” Sims wrote. “Perhaps this is intended to insulate 14,000 state employees from the reality that Idaho and this country have a medical crisis? Regardless, it is outrageously unfair to ask privately insured taxpayers to again absorb these increases.”

None of the appropriation bills that have come to the House for votes so far have contained the $650 health insurance issue, but Sims has voted against four of the seven. The only ones that have emerged so far involve supplemental appropriations – budget adjustments for the current year for agencies – and none of them involved spending state general tax funds, with the exception of the measure to pay the state’s annual firefighting costs; Sims voted for that one.

Sims said Friday that she has the same objection to the supplemental appropriation bills that she’ll have to later agency budget bills. “It’s the same reason,” she said. “It’s in there.”

Among the appropriation bills she’s voted against so far: SB 1002, permitting Idaho Public Television to spend $183,200 from a federal grant for equipment replacement, including replacing power supply components for Idaho PTV’s Coeur d’Alene transmitter. The bill passed.

The others she voted against were SB 1012, allowing the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation to spend $555,000 from a federal grant; SB 1003, allowing the state Department of Environmental Quality to spend $500,000 on the Triumph Mine cleanup that was paid in by responsible parties; and HB 40, letting the Office of Energy Resources spend $246,000 from a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy.

All four bills passed easily.

The three appropriations Sims voted in favor of were HB 41, to let the State Independent Living Council spend an additional $75,000 this year from its existing funds, a measure that passed unanimously; SB 1013, to adjust the Fish and Game budget downward by $874,100 to better match license sales figures; and HB 26, the measure to pay Idaho’s annual firefighting bills, which drew only one “no” vote, from Rep. Vito Barbieri, R-Dalton Gardens.

The Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee is scheduled to start writing next year’s budget bills on Feb. 23.

Tax break on glasses

Idaho is one of just six states that charge sales tax on prescription glasses, and Idaho’s optometric physicians think it’s time to exempt glasses and contact lenses from the sales tax. All other prescription items already are exempt; it’s been that way since Idaho’s sales tax was instituted in the 1960s.

“It is a tax break that will affect over 50 percent of all Idahoans,” lobbyist Kris Ellis told the House Revenue and Taxation Committee, which agreed to introduce the bill. That clears the way for a full hearing on it.

The measure would exempt glasses from the sales tax next year, costing the state general fund an estimated $1.6 million; and would add contacts the following year, adding another $1.6 million fiscal impact, for a total of $3.2 million.

‘Not for the pay’

Freshman Rep. Eric Redman, R-Athol, gave the opening prayer in the House last Tuesday, as the regular chaplain was away. Redman said his message was for all representatives, Republican and Democrat alike. “I believe you all are here to sincerely serve the constituents in your district, and together we serve the citizens of Idaho. We certainly aren’t doing it for the pay,” he said. “I thank you for your diligence and perseverance.”