County wants expanded sales-tax options

Ideas for how to spend some extra sales-tax dollars are floating around the Rathdrum Prairie.

Kootenai County voters will get a chance in November to tell county and state lawmakers whether they would support buying up to 10,000 acres of prairie for open space or building a multimillion-dollar civic center in the middle of the county.

Both proposals will be on the Nov. 2 general election ballot. County officials will use the advisory vote to gauge the priorities of local residents.

But at this point, both these plans are just dreams whose reality rides with the tax-averse Legislature.

State lawmakers would have to expand the local-option sales tax law to pay for these types of projects. Currently, the law only allows counties to use the additional sales tax to pay for jails. Nearly 70 percent of Kootenai County voters agreed in November 2003 to use a half-cent sales tax to pay off the $12 million jail expansion.

More importantly, the upcoming advisory vote will indicate if residents even want the law changed.

“Essentially my role in this whole thing is to try to facilitate the vision of the voters,” Sen. John Goedde, R-Coeur d’Alene, said. “From the legislative standpoint it certainly would be much easier to sell in concept if the voters of a county have already indicated support for the proposal.”

Goedde isn’t the only one interested in asking the Legislature to expand the local-option sales tax so it can pay for projects other than jails.

People across the state are coming up with ideas on how to use the half-cent sales tax. Officials in Ada County are envisioning a mass-transportation system.

In Kootenai County, there are already the two – somewhat contrary – ideas that will be on the advisory ballot.

Kootenai County Commissioner Dick Panabaker revealed last month a plan that he said would protect the aquifer under the prairie, decrease field burning, secure large amounts of open space and ensure the region is able to meet its growing wastewater treatment needs.

Local car dealer John Robideaux also has a vision for the prairie – a multimillion-dollar civic center that would have a swimming pool, ice rink and convention space. Robideaux has had the idea for years, but never had a way to fund a centrally-located events center.

This week Robideaux refused to give specifics of the project, saying he wanted to wait until the County Commission finalizes the advisory vote in the next few weeks.

“Let’s just wait one more week,” Robideaux urged, adding it’s not his plan but a community-supported effort.

Even though Robideaux wouldn’t publicly discuss the civic center idea, other people confirmed it would be a recreational and cultural center that could have a pool, ice rink and conference space.

“It would be a major sports-type complex,” Coeur d’Alene Finance Director Troy Tymesen said.

Tymesen said Robideaux’s plan wouldn’t compete with the city’s attempt to transform Lakes Middle School into a community center.

“They don’t even compare,” Tymesen said.

The Coeur d’Alene School District is working with the city to swap the middle school and Persons Field. The district would build a new middle school on the jointly-owned field while Lakes would become a community center. The two entities are waiting for real estate appraisals before they can move ahead with the trade, Tymesen said.

Panabaker said nobody knew Robideaux had his sights on the sales tax until after the commission chairman made his announcement about the prairie plan.

“It might muddy the water,” Panabaker said about competing with the civic center proposal. “The most important thing to me is to get the ground. Then the center can be done on its own.”

Panabaker said after the prairie property is bought, people can build a civic center and maybe even move the fairgrounds. The commissioner wants to use the half-cent sales tax to buy between 8,000 and 10,000 acres of prairie land, which could be developed into parks, trails and sports fields. Other spots could be restored to native prairie. Some of it could be irrigated with treated wastewater – reducing the amount of effluent dumped into the Spokane River.

Panabaker presented the concept to about 40 people and asked them to think about the idea. He’s checking back Friday to get their feedback.

Goedde said people can’t forget that facing the Legislature is going to be the biggest challenge – not deciding whether to use the money for open space and aquifer protection or building a civic center. He said that Canyon County lawmakers also may be working on a proposal to expand the local-option tax.

“Some legislators don’t trust the ability of voters who elected them to approach the taxation issue,” Goedde said. “Some of those legislators are just anti tax – ‘no new taxes on my watch.’ “

This wouldn’t be the first local-option fight Kootenai County has survived.

The county had been paying off the jail bonds this way until 2002, when the Idaho Supreme Court overturned the 1996 law that allowed the tax.

In the final days of the 2003 Legislature, Goedde and other local lawmakers convinced their colleagues to pass a bill to allow Kootenai County to once again ask voters to support the local-option tax. Opponents disliked it for various reasons. Some argued the county should live within its budget while others feared property taxes would skyrocket when the half-cent sales tax ends in 2006.

Proponents say the local-option sales tax is popular because it provides property tax relief while giving counties the ability to pay for projects that they couldn’t normally afford. And because it’s a sales tax, it means tourists and other visitors help foot the bill.

If the Legislature were to expand the local-option sales tax, Kootenai County voters would then have to decide how to spend the half-cent once the jail is paid off in late 2006.

“By that time there might be something else the citizens want to do,” Commissioner Rick Currie said. “This advisory vote is just telling us whether we should fight the fight (with the Legislature).”

Frank Henderson, a former Kootenai County Commissioner and Post Falls mayor who is running for the Idaho House as a Republican, said using the money to pay off school bonds is another idea. He said he read in a recent letter in the newspaper about using the money to expand the faculty at North Idaho College.

“I’m sure there are a lot of other ideas,” said Henderson, who is running against Democrat Lyndon Harriman.

Currently, Kootenai County expects to collect $18 million from the half-cent tax. Half of the money will go toward the remaining $8 million in jail bonds. The other half goes to property tax relief.

Association of Idaho Counties Executive Director Dan Chadwick agrees that a bill to expand the local-option sales tax won’t be popular with state lawmakers.

“I would suspect there will be a really difficult process to even get a hearing,” Chadwick said, adding that the chairwoman of the House Revenue and Taxation Committee isn’t fond of the local-option idea.

Yet his association backs giving county voters the ability to levy a local-option tax, without any restrictions on how that cash is spent.

Chadwick said the current half-cent sales tax that Kootenai County is using to fund its jail is working well. In May, Nez Perce County voters gave 79 percent approval to a half-cent sales tax to also pay for a jail.

“It’s worth discussion at any time,” Chadwick said.