Session Addressed Much, But Not Everything School Construction Funding, Prison Overcrowding Among The Unfinished Business

Idahoans will see higher speed limits, more protection for farm workers who suffer on-the-job injuries, a new kind of welfare system and a statewide road-repair program funded by higher gas taxes.

Fast-growing North Idaho cities will, for the first time, be able to tap new development to help pay its service costs through impact fees.

But the 1996 state legislative session that closed Friday stopped short of addressing two major problems that loom over the state: A more than $700 million school construction backlog, and a ballooning prison population that will need $250 million in new cell space in the next six years.

House Speaker Mike Simpson, R-Blackfoot, said this year’s session at least started the debate over school construction.

He proposed three bills that would have committed millions of dollars in state funds to help local school districts build and repair schools. But with a tight state budget, lawmakers never found the money.

Idaho is the only state in the nation that both requires a two-thirds vote to pass a school construction bond, and leaves local property taxpayers with the full bill.

On prisons, Gov. Phil Batt convened a task force before the session to try to come up with a way to avoid spending all that money. But, he admitted last week, “There’s no magic bullet for this.

“As more people in the population have committed crimes, we have to build the prisons.”

Only a drop in crime would bring real relief, he said.

Another pressing issue left unaddressed by the Legislature was tribal economic development. After three years of squabbling between the Kootenai Indian Tribe and the Bonners Ferry business community, the two sides finally agreed on an alternative to the tribe’s long-sought sales tax exemption for a new business project.

But the Legislature rejected the deal.

Major changes in Idaho law produced by the Legislature this year include:

Lawmakers ended agriculture’s 79-year exemption from worker’s compensation insurance requirements. The long-fought change was pushed through by Batt, himself a farmer. Three North Idaho representatives, Reps. Jeff Alltus, R-Coeur d’Alene; Tom Dorr, R-Post Falls; and Wayne Meyer, R-Rathdrum; opposed the change. Meyer is a grass seed farmer who never has provided worker’s comp to his farmhands.

Cities and other agencies across the state will have the option of charging development impact fees. Such fees are legal now only in Ada County.

Maximum freeway speed limits will rise in some areas to 75 mph after May 1, and some state and local roads will go up to 65 mph.

The gist of Batt’s proposed welfare reform program passed the Legislature, and will be enacted over the next couple of years. That means welfare in Idaho will be converted into a temporary program that pushes recipients to learn job skills and be out on their own within two years. The program also calls for stepped-up child support enforcement.

Idaho’s gas tax will increase 4 cents a gallon April 1, with the first $6 million collected going to match federal disaster funds to repair flood-damaged North Idaho roads. After that, the money will fund a statewide program to address a $4 billion road repair backlog; a vehicle registration fee increase next Jan. 1 will help with that project. North Idaho’s representatives split on the package, with most opposing it. One northern senator, Tim Tucker, D-Porthill, also opposed the bill.

Counties were authorized to use forms of government other than the now-required three-commissioner system. Voters called for the flexibility two years ago by approving a constitutional amendment; it took the Legislature two sessions to agree on the rules.

Dog racing will be banned in Idaho. But the Post Falls Greyhound Park still will be allowed to conduct betting on simulcasts of horse and dog races. After July of 1999, the facility will be limited to simulcasts of horse races.

Bogus liens that tax protesters and others have taken to filing against public officials will be crimped. County clerks will be told clearly that they don’t have to record them; a new, easier process will be created for lifting the liens; and civil damages of up to $5,000 may be assessed against those who knowingly file liens that have no basis in law.

There will be limits on which medical procedures counties will fund for indigent people.

Cities and counties will be specifically authorized to regulate personal watercraft use, if they choose.

“I can’t complain about what they’ve done,” Batt said of lawmakers. “They’re out of here in 60, 70 days. It’s a good session.”

The 68-day legislative session was among the shortest in recent years. Last year’s session was the same length, but eight of the past 10 years have seen sessions lasting more than 80 days.

There were 774 bills introduced, plus 71 resolutions. As of Friday morning, 419 had passed both houses, 235 had been signed by the governor, two had become law without his signature, and five had been vetoed.

Batt said the farm workers’ comp bill and the gas tax increase were tough votes for lawmakers, but he thought they did the right thing.

“It took a lot of political courage.”

, DataTimes