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Eye On Boise

Compromise bill on funding magistrate courts passes House, though Moyle says it’s ‘not our problem’

A long fight between cities and counties, particularly in the Treasure Valley, over funding magistrate courts is resolved by compromise legislation that passed the House today on a 53-17 vote. HB 643, the product of a collaborative working group of city and county officials and the Idaho state courts, would divert $6 of the district court fee for civil filings, misdemeanors, felonies and infractions from the state general fund to magistrate courts. That means just over $1.5 million in fees would flow to the counties for magistrate courts each year, rather than to the state general fund. The bill also would divert 15 percent of the local share of state liquor funds to the magistrate courts, a share that would be phased in over five years; at the same time, city responsibilities for funding magistrate courts also would be phased out over five years. Once fully phased in, those liquor funds would total $7.4 million per year.

Rep. Lance Clow, R-Twin Falls, told the House, “We worked through this problem. … I’m encouraged by the cities’ and counties’ support for this, and that they feel like it’s an equitable way to approach this. … This seems to be a good compromise.”

House Majority Leader Mike Moyle, R-Star, however, railed against the bill, saying the state general fund shouldn’t be tapped to contribute toward magistrate court funding. “It’s not our problem,” he declared, saying cities and counties should take care of “their problem.”

Rep. Terry Gestrin, R-Donnelly, noted that he’s a former county commissioner, and spoke in favor of the bill. He said counties are “held with the responsibility for court facilities,” and said he was sorry that last week, while he was gone, the House rejected legislation to allow counties to increase their local tax levies for their justice funds if needed, without exceeding overall caps on property tax collections. “Some of ‘em are up against their limit,” Gestrin said, noting that courthouses in his district are old and in need of work.

Moyle also led the opposition to that bill, HB 555, which the House killed Feb. 27 on a 27-41 vote.

The magistrate court funding bill now moves to the Senate side.



Betsy Z. Russell
Betsy Z. Russell joined The Spokesman-Review in 1991. She currently is a reporter in the Boise Bureau covering Idaho state government and politics, and other news from Idaho's state capital.

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